


At Least We Have Christmas

by animeXalchemist



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angel/Human Relationships, Christmas, Coming of Age, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Guardian Angels, Heavy Petting, Honeymoon, Injury, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Masturbation, Mistletoe, Oral Sex, Pining, Rimming, Romance, Slow Burn, these tags are hornier than the fic i stg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:53:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 67,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21944671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animeXalchemist/pseuds/animeXalchemist
Summary: When he was a young boy, Sora’s act of compassion led to him meeting his guardian angel. This is the story of their relationship over a lifetime of Christmases.
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 158





	1. Charity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a gift-fic for Fae as part of the SoRiku Christmas Exchange event~ You'd think I'd have learnt my lesson after my last exchange and I'd have gone into this one with a clear head. And yet, as with everything I do, it massively spiralled out of control. My simple Angel AU became... this. And once again I'm not sure how much I nailed the prompt "n.n
> 
> Still, I hope you can enjoy it! Merry Xmas everyone!! ^_^
> 
> **Prompt: **Kiss under the mistletoe; fluffy and warm, perfect for the holiday seasons.****

Sora loved Christmas.

He had been on this earth for six years and nine months and in that time, he had come to the conclusion that Christmas was absolutely the best holiday.

He loved the food and he loved putting up decorations. He loved looking at all of the presents that were beautifully wrapped under the tree and trying to guess what each and every one of them was. But if he had to pick an absolute favourite thing about Christmas, it would have to be the angel that they put on top of the Christmas tree.

The angel’s skin was made of smooth porcelain, and Sora was utterly convinced that his long silver hair had come directly from a unicorn. Sometimes he’d run his small fingers through the hair and delight in how silky it was. A white gown adorned the angel’s body, tied neatly around his waist by a tiny golden thread, and sprouting out of his back were two downy wings. But what Sora loved the most were the angel’s eyes. Two small, delicate aquamarine gemstones had been carefully set into place, and they would glitter so prettily in the Christmas lights. The angel didn’t have a mouth, but that was okay; it just meant that Sora could imagine the angel’s expression for himself.

Last year, for the first time, Sora had been able to place the angel on top of the tree. He had been five back then, an age at which he was trusted to assume responsibility for this most sacred of Christmas traditions. His father had held him up and Sora had never been so serious about anything before as he dutifully placed the angel atop his perch. The sense of pride and happiness he had felt when he saw his angel up there after the fact had been indescribable.

And so it was only natural for him to want to do it again this year. He had actually been looking forward to it for months; sometimes unboxing the angel from his bed of bubble wrap and tissue paper was more enjoyable than opening his actual presents.

And that is why it was with the deepest sense of betrayal in his big blue eyes that he currently regarded his brother Roxas, who insisted that this year it was _his_ turn to put the angel on top of the tree.

“No!” Sora said petulantly, stomping his foot on the ground to really convey just how seriously he was willing to take this fight, “I wanna do it!”

Roxas puffed up his cheeks and held the angel behind him and even further away from Sora. “You did it last year!” he argued.

“But I wanna do it again!” Sora argued back, lunging forward to try and grab his precious angel from Roxas’ grasp.

“But you did it last year!”

“But I wanna do it again!”

It was a rather cyclical argument.

After about two minutes of this riveting back-and-forth, Roxas threw a curveball:

“Why should you get to?”

Sora was stunned only for a moment before shooting back with, “Cuz I’m a year older!”

Roxas pouted at this and Sora grinned triumphantly, darting forward to grab at Roxas’ shirt and pull his younger brother closer to him. This then allowed him to grab at the fist that his precious angel had been ensconced in.

“No fair!” Roxas said, trying to pull his hand back, but Sora refused to let go.

“He’s mine!” Sora said, tugging at the angel.

“But it’s my turn!”

_Pull._

“You don’t even love him like I do!”

_Tug._

“But I still wanna put him on the tree!”

_Jerk._

“But I wanna do it again!”

_Yank._

“But you did it last year!”

**_Crack._ **

Both boys stumbled back, Roxas with a fistful of angel, Sora with a delicate porcelain arm. Roxas gasped loudly, and Sora looked dumbly at the appendage in his hand before looking over at the now-armless angel.

Sora burst into tears.

Their mother ran in then to see what all of the commotion was about. She saw Sora on his knees, cradling the broken angel in his hands, while Roxas nervously flitted about him, occasionally placing a reassuring hand on his brother’s shoulder and awkwardly stuttering out “Sorrys” and “I didn’t mean tos”.

Sora looked up at her with wide watery eyes and carefully held up his palms so she could see what had happened.

“Oh sweetheart,” she cooed, “We’ll fix it.”

Luckily the break had miraculously been a clean one, and was nothing that a bit of super glue couldn’t fix.

“I’ll do it,” Sora sniffed. “It was my fault he got hurt.”

Under parental supervision, Sora took his newfound job as Angel Surgeon incredibly seriously. He placed down some glittery wrapping paper on the coffee-cum-operating table so that hopefully the angel wouldn’t feel so sad about being temporarily broken. Then with shaky hands, Sora dipped the tip of a cotton wool bud into some super glue and did his best to dab it neatly where the break had occurred. He would occasionally murmur words of reassurance to his patient during the procedure, just to make sure the angel was truly at ease.

The tip of Sora’s tongue stuck out of his mouth in concentration when it was time for him to affix the arm back onto the angel’s body. He held it in place for a few long seconds before gingerly pulling away and assessing his handiwork.

“There,” his mother smiled, stroking her fingers though her son’s spiky hair, “Good as new.”

“Wait,” Sora said in response, going over to the big box of Christmas decorations that they had been in the middle of putting onto the tree before the angel argument broke out. He rooted around for some tissue paper and then padded back over to his angel. He spent the next five minutes fashioning a small sling out of a strip of the tissue paper, and carefully tied it around the angel’s neck.

“He needs rest,” Sora told his mother seriously. “We can’t put him on the tree yet.”

“Oh of course,” his mother nodded solemnly. “Can I trust you to take good care of him?”

“Yeah!” Sora said, nodding his head vigorously. “Leave it to me!”

For the next few days, Sora wouldn’t let the angel out of his sight. He placed him on his pillow during the night and would make sure to wake up a little earlier so that he could wipe at a porcelain brow and then mime giving the angel food.

(That bit was a little tough, seeing as the angel didn’t have a mouth, but Sora was a dedicated doctor and did not let such a minor detail dissuade him.)

On Christmas Eve, Sora concluded that the angel’s arm was healed enough to lose the sling. And that same evening he and Roxas got into another argument over the angel, although this time it was about why the _other_ should be the one to put him up on the tree: “I did it last year, so you can do it this time!” “No, you like him more than me, so you do it!”

In the end they both did it. Their father held up Sora and their mother held up Roxas, and together the boys placed the angel on his rightful place atop the tree.

They switched on the fairy lights and watched as they gently blinked on then faded out in a constant, soothing pattern. At some point his mother left to go make dinner and Roxas dragged their dad away to show him something. But Sora stood in the same place, gazing up happily at his angel and appreciating how pretty gemstone eyes shone in the light.

“I’m sorry about your arm,” Sora apologised after long minutes had passed. He’d already done so profusely since the incident, but he felt the need to say it again. “You’re watching over us again this year, but it was fun watching over you for once. N-Not that I’ll break your arm again!” He shuffled his feet. “Merry Christmas.”

“Sora! Dinner’s ready!”

“Coming!”

Christmas Eve was the one day of the year where Sora didn’t moan and try to stay up later once he was told it was bedtime. The sooner he got into bed and fell asleep, the sooner Santa Claus would come and visit. And so it wasn’t long after he had finished dinner that he swiftly changed into his pyjamas and brushed his teeth before promptly diving under his blankets.

Given the stress of being a full-time angel carer for the past few days, sleep came quickly to the young boy. It was a little lonely not having his angel on the pillow next to him, but knowing he was safely on top of the tree was comforting enough that dreams had soon claimed him.

At some point during the night, Sora stirred in his slumber. He heard a light shuffling noise, and felt a sort of… presence. Ordinarily such an occurrence would have snapped him awake, but there was a quality to this presence best described as a comforting warmth. Rather than jolt awake, the soothing warmth washed over him like the waves on their doorstep.

Sora had never felt more at peace than in that moment, and he very nearly fell right back into slumber to think of this tomorrow as nothing but a beautifully vivid dream. But then he felt long, gentle fingers carding through his hair, and curiosity won out against simply surrendering to whatever this overwhelming feeling of contentment was.

With great effort he blinked sleepy eyes open and squinted up at the person standing above him.

“Whu…?” he asked groggily, and the person above him immediately took a large step back as they inhaled sharply. The action roused the brunette boy further and he was able to sit up, rubbing at his eyes before focusing on the stranger in his room.

He had been warned, of course, of stranger danger. Finding an unknown person in his bedroom was definitely one of those times when he should scream and alert everyone in the house to what was going on. But something within Sora knew that the person with him right now was good. Not just good, but sort of… the very _embodiment_ of good.

“Apologies,” a soft voice spoke after a moment. “My intent was not to wake you…”

Sora cocked his head to the side and studied the stranger. He was definitely much older than Sora was, but seemed younger than his parents were. The young man possessed flawless pale skin, long silver hair, pretty aquamarine eyes that glittered in the moonlight streaming in through his window, and… was he glowing? Sora blinked and looked back and yes, there was definitely a gentle light emanating off of him.

“You’re my angel,” Sora said in wonder. There was absolutely no mistaking it; stood before him was definitely his beloved Christmas angel, only now he was actually alive and here and talking and—

Sora gasped.

The angel just _talked_ to him.

“You have a mouth!” he said, scrambling out from under the covers and crawling over to the foot of his bed, where the angel was standing and regarding him somewhat warily.

“Of course I have a mouth,” the angel said simply.

Sora laughed brightly and knelt on the end. He reached up to the angel’s face and, with the lack of tact that only a child possesses, hooked his thumbs into the sides of the angel’s mouth and tugged.

“Wow!”

“Hey, hey! Cut it out!” the angel protested, taking a step back and rubbing at his cheeks. He looked at Sora with eyes widened in confusion, but all Sora could do was giggle.

“I’m Sora!” he said joyfully.

“I know,” the angel replied, before pausing. “I mean… it’s a pleasure to meet you, Sora. My name is Riku.”

Sora’s mouth fell open. The angel had a name! All this time he had just referred to him as ‘angel’, prefaced only by ‘the’ or ‘my’. Sometimes, if he was feeling fancy, he’d call him ‘Mr Angel’, but to think that this whole entire time he had a name…

“Riku,” Sora tried the name out. “Ri _ku_. Riiiiiiku. Rikooooo. Rik—”

“I just wanted to expresses,” the angel—Riku—cut in, “My gratitude.”

“Graty-huh?” Sora asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Ah, my gratitude?” Riku tried again. When Sora just looked at him blankly, Riku bit his lip and gestured helplessly. “My… my thanks?” he tried.

“Oh!” Sora said. “You mean, about your arm?”

Riku nodded. “Yes, exactly.”

Sora frowned and looked at Riku’s arm intently. He couldn’t see a scar, in fact, he couldn’t see any marks whatsoever, but he still felt guilty. “I’m sorry you got hurt…”

Riku shook his head. “I didn’t. There appears to be some confusion. I am not the angel perched atop your tree. I can assure you that it still sits there as we speak. Rather, your love for, and belief in, that angel was able to manifest in such a way as to let me cross over to…” Riku trailed off. It was obvious that he had lost Sora once more. He thought for a moment, then held up his index finger when inspiration struck.

“How about you just think of this as a Christmas miracle?”

“A Christmas miracle,” Sora repeated. “Cool!”

There was a lull in the conversation. Riku didn’t seem accustomed to conversations at all, and Sora was too busy marvelling at having his angel, or someone who looked remarkably similar, standing before him. After the silence stretched on just a touch too long for Riku to feel comfortable, he cleared his throat and looked about ready to say something when Sora, without any reservations whatsoever said:

“You’re pretty.”

And that seemed to temporarily shut Riku’s brain down. He recovered with a soft, unsure inhale of breath, and a polite bow of his head. “Thank you.”

“I think you’re prettier than the angel on the tree,” Sora said after having considered this for those serious minutes of silence.

“…thank you.”

“Ah! But don’t tell him I said that!”

Riku blinked at him, and then finally cracked something like a small smile. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“Oh oh oh!” Sora said excitedly. “I need to introduce you to Roxy! He’s my brother. He won’t believe this!”

Riku sighed and closed the distance between himself and the excitable child at the foot of the bed. He knelt down so they were level, and for a moment looked as though he were about to reach out before clearly thinking better of the action.

“Sora,” Riku said calmly, “He wouldn’t be able to see me.”

“Huh? Why?” Sora blinked owlishly.

“Because I have made it so.”

“Huh? Why?” Sora repeated.

“The risk I took in revealing myself to you was great enough,” Riku admitted. “Normally this shouldn’t even be possible, and just because I was presented with the opportunity to cross over doesn’t mean it was wise for me to have taken it. I just… wanted to meet you properly,” Riku confessed. “Please forgive my selfish actions.”

Like this, it almost looked as though Riku was bowing before him. Sora considered the words carefully for a moment, then crossed his arms as he delivered his conclusion. “I don’t think you need to apologise.” When Riku looked at him questioningly, Sora smiled widely. “If you hadn’t come over, we wouldn’t have met. And if we didn’t meet, we never would have talked, and I never would have learnt your name. So I’m glad you came to say hi, Riku. Thanks to that, we can be friends! That’s not something to be sorry about.”

Riku was looking at him as if he had just said something incredible, and even though Sora didn’t think he had done anything of the sort (all he had done was say the truth), he couldn’t help but puff his chest up a little proudly.

“Friends,” Riku murmured the word, a little dazed.

“Yeah!” Sora nodded vigorously. “Even if others can’t see you, we can still do a lot of stuff. We can play with my news Christmas toys, and we can watch the fireworks with everyone when it’s New Year’s Day, and when I’m back at school I’ll show you around and you can help me with maths because counting is really hard and everyone teases me about that,” he pouted. “Oh! And every year we go on a class trip and this year I think we’re going to the zoo so we can…” Sora stopped when he realised that Riku didn’t seem even remotely jazzed about any of this. The corners of his mouth were pulled down ever so slightly in the ghost of a frown. “Riku?”

“I’m glad that you consider me a friend,” Riku said after a moment, each word from his lips sounding as if it had been purposefully picked and vetted before being spoken. “And all of that does sound like fun, however…”

“You have to go?” Sora finished for him, having an idea of what his next carefully chosen words were going to be.

Riku nodded.

Sora’s face fell. “But why?” he asked.

“Crossing over like I did isn’t something that can just be done on a whim. Only very high level angels and demons have that ability.” Riku took a moment to gather his thoughts, and then continued. “You see, Sora, between our worlds there is a boundary that keeps them apart. You can understand why, right? It would be troublesome having our kind running amok in your world, and we can’t have humans crossing over before their time.

“But Christmas is the one time of year where the boundary separating our worlds gets thinner, because that is when human belief in magic and a world beyond this one is at its peak. And in some places, the boundary simply ceases to exist and cross over points are created. You can think of them a bit like portals. Such places often occur in areas where there is a high concentration of spirituality and belief. And you, Sora, were able to create such a crossing point on your own.”

“So… the angel on top of the tree is a portal?” Sora asked, desperately trying to keep up with the lengthy explanation. It was too late to be thinking this hard and his head hurt a little bit with the effort, but this was information he needed to understand because it related to his new friend. If it was for Riku, he’d try super hard to understand.

“Essentially.”

“And it only works on Christmas?”

“Yes. That is when the boundary is at its thinnest, and when the higher-ups are a little more… flexible with the rules.”

“I think I understand,” Sora said slowly, screwing his face up in concentration, “But I don’t get it. Why do you have to leave? Aren’t you my angel?”

He had to be, right? Riku had appeared to him, and only him, for a reason. More than that, though, Sora could feel a sort of… tug. It was barely perceptible, but he could feel it faintly on the edges of his heart, pulling him towards Riku, towards this creature of light. Everything about Riku was warmth and safety and sanctuary. And even if it sounded selfish out loud, Sora was certain that this was all for him.

He was certain that Riku was for him.

Riku managed the closest thing so far to a full smile in that moment, and he reached forward and ruffled Sora’s hair fondly.

“Yes,” he replied. “It is as you say: I am your angel. To be precise, I am your guardian angel. Protecting you is my duty, and I swear to you that I will always keep you safe. Even if you cannot see me, know that I am always with you. I’ll be right here,” he said softly, placing his fingertips over Sora’s heart. “All you have to do is keep being you, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

This seemed to mollify the young boy, who finally stopped pouting and instead nodded his head in understanding. “Okay,” he whispered.

Riku nodded and moved to stand up, but Sora quickly reached out and grabbed hold of one of Riku’s hands with both of his own. Riku stilled, and waited for Sora to speak. The latter didn’t do so immediately, instead playing with each of Riku’s long fingers, before finally looking up at his guardian angel with an intensity beyond his tender years.

“So I’ll see you next Christmas, okay?”

Riku furrowed his brow. “I’m sorry?”

“If the portal only works at Christmas, you have to come visit me at Christmas,” Sora reasoned. Riku clearly wasn’t sure what he was meant to say in response to that, and this caused Sora’s pout to return full force. “Wait, you were just gonna visit me this once? And when I was asleep? What if I hadn’t woken up?”

“Then this would have gone a lot more according to plan,” Riku replied simply.

“Riku!” Sora whined. “You’re a meanie! You can’t just appear once and try and thank me without me even hearing it! I woke up and now we’re friends and friends don’t just leave forever after only speaking once!”

Riku took the admonishments in his stride. “I shouldn’t have appeared at all,” he pointed out.

“But you did,” Sora said.

“…I did,” Riku agreed.

“So no take backsies! We’re friends and since I can’t visit you, you _have_ to come and visit me. So there,” he said, sticking his tongue out.

“What a mature argument,” Riku commented.

“Of course!” Sora replied proudly, and Riku wasn’t sure if the sarcasm was simply lost on the young boy or if he merely didn’t care. “I’m nearly seven, yanno!”

Riku hummed, pretending to be impressed. “You’re practically a man.”

“Yup!”

“So you have no need for me to come and visit an independent adult such as yourself.”

“Wha—heyyy,” Sora whined, doing his best to glare at his guardian angel. “That’s not fair, Riku!”

Riku huffed a breath that could have been a laugh had the angel felt like putting more effort into it. “Sorry,” he apologised, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards ever so slightly.

In response, Sora finally released Riku’s hands so that he could thrust one of his own into the angel’s face, his little finger extended. “Promise,” Sora said seriously. “Promise you’ll visit me on Christmas. Not just next Christmas, but _all_ Christmases.”

“Sora, I—”

“ _Promise_.”

Sensing that arguing the point would be futile, Riku hesitantly lifted his right hand and entwined his pinkie finger with Sora’s. “My word is my bond,” he said solemnly, “I swear to honour it. I promise to visit you for a lifetime’s worth of Christmases.”

He pulled his hand back and Sora mourned the loss of Riku’s warmth only for a moment, because his ensuing delight at the promise overshadowed everything.

“Awesome!”

“Now shouldn’t you be asleep?” Riku asked, raising an eyebrow. “If you talk to me all night, Santa might not come.”

Sora gasped at that and quickly flung himself back to the top of his bed, burying himself under his blankets.

“Sleep well,” he heard Riku murmur, but when Sora poked his head up to wish Riku a Merry Christmas, the angel was nowhere to be seen. Sora was only a little bit downhearted at this; they had next year, after all. Riku had promised.

As Sora snuggled into his pillow and felt sleep once more beginning to pull him under after his angel-induced adrenaline rush, he comforted himself with the knowledge that this Christmas was merely the first of many more to come.

x~x~x~x~x

Sora had an entire game plan prepared for his second Christmas with Riku. Firstly, he had _insisted_ that his mother make up a plate of Christmas food for Riku. When his mother questioned who Riku was, Sora explained without reservation that Riku was his guardian angel who could only visit him on Christmas, and he would only appear to him.

His mother had nodded, going along with her son’s story, and asked if Riku was the name of the angel he liked so much, the one on top of the tree. Sora had shaken his head at that and explained to her that the angel on the tree was actually a portal that the real Riku could travel through. His explanation had been so earnest that she only laughed a little bit, and decided to humour her son by setting aside a small plate for ‘Riku’.

Sora also got it into his head that angel food cake was quintessential angel fare and, not wanting Riku to miss his home too much if he wasn’t going to be there at Christmas, spent weeks trying to perfect the recipe. His first attempt had been bad enough to set the smoke alarm in their house off, but each subsequent attempt brought him closer to creating an actual cake as opposed to a flaming hazard that could burn their house to the ground. The one he made on Christmas Eve was perfect if not for the slight singing at the edges, and Sora buzzed with excitement at the thought of Riku finally getting to try it.

He went to bed without argument when directed to do so, but was too excited to be able to drift off. Instead he watched the clock on his bedside cabinet intently, feeling his heart skip a beat each time the numbers flipped to indicate yet another minute passing. He heard his parents go to bed at 23:36, and when the glowing display showed 23:57, Sora quietly slid out from under the covers and tip-toed out of his room and down the stairs.

His intent was to greet Riku as soon as he crossed over, but on the way he realised that he may also _finally_ catch Santa coming down his chimney, and that would be awesome. For the final few minutes before midnight, Sora imagined what a conversation between himself, Riku, and Santa Claus would be like, and at precisely 00:00 the angel on top of the tree lit up so brightly that Sora had to shield his eyes against it.

Sora immediately felt the divine warmth from last year seep into his skin once again, felt that comforting tug on his heart, and he smiled widely when his vision finally cleared and Riku stood before him.

“You came!” Sora exclaimed happily.

“Of course,” Riku replied, bowing his head respectfully. “I gave my word, and my word is my bond.”

Sora looked at his guardian angel in wonder. Riku hadn’t changed a single bit. Everything was still perfect, not a single strand of his long silvery hair out of place. Sora didn’t even think it had grown, at least not by much. Sora, on the other hand, had changed quite a bit, and he wasted no time in telling Riku all about it.

“I lost a tooth this year!” he chatted, padding up to the angel and taking his hand without hesitation. “Then the Tooth Fairy came and I got some munny! Here, look,” he said, grinning to let Riku see where his tooth had once been. “Do you know the Tooth Fairy?” he asked as he led Riku into the kitchen.

“I am aware of her alleged work,” was the diplomatic reply. Had Sora understood what the word ‘alleged’ meant he may have argued the point, but he didn’t, so instead he pulled out a chair at the table and gestured for Riku to sit down. Riku did as instructed.

“And then I also grew, like, a whole six centimetres! See? Aren’t I taller, Riku?”

The angel nodded in response, looking at the young boy curiously as he went to the fridge and pulled out a cling-filmed plate.

“I’ll be taller than you soon, just you wait.”

Sora was pulled out of his task when he heard something that sounded suspiciously like a snort. He turned around to look at Riku, who was sat at the dining table and pursing his lips slightly.

“Did you just laugh?” Sora asked, puffing out his cheeks. Riku glanced at him before looking quickly to the floor, pursing his lips harder. “Hey! I _will_ get taller, yanno!” he insisted.

Riku quickly brought a hand up to cover his mouth and nodded in response, clearly doing everything in his power to keep his shoulders from shaking.

“You don’t believe me,” Sora whined, going over to the table and leaning across it. “I’m one hundred and fifteen centimetres! That's tall, right? Cuz it’s over one hundred, and that’s a big number! How tall are you, anyway?”

Riku carefully removed his hand from his mouth and considered the question. “I am not too sure, but I think… probably around one hundred and eighty centimetres?”

Sora gawped at him, then quickly brought his fingers up to try and count the difference between them. The devastating truth was that he didn’t have enough fingers for such a calculation, but even though he was pretty bad at numbers and counting, he could tell it was a lot.

Suddenly his six-centimetre growth spurt didn’t seem nearly as impressive.

“So, why am I sat at your table?” Riku asked, perhaps as a way to distract Sora from his pitiful attempt at mental maths.

“Oh yeah! I made sure you could have some Christmas food this year,” Sora explained, going back over to the plate in question and popping it in the microwave. “And then, for dessert, I made you this!” He ran over to the counter on which his cake lay covered, and carefully brought it over to the table and lay it before Riku like an offering. He pulled off the cover with a flourish and looked eagerly at Riku’s expression.

Riku’s expression was one of utter confusion.

“It’s an angel food cake?” Sora tried, pushing the plate a little closer to him.

“Oh,” Riku said simply, studying it.

“Isn’t this what angels eat? It’s called angel food…” Sora frowned.

Riku broke a piece of the cake off and turned it around in his fingers. “Well,” he began, “I’m not human, and things are a little different for me. I don’t need to eat food like you do.”

“Oh…” Sora said, deflating a little.

Riku regarded him for a moment and then sighed. “But just because I don’t need to, doesn’t mean I can’t,” he said, and popped the piece of cake into his mouth. Sora watched him chew and swallow with baited breath, and then Riku was doing that almost-smiling thing he did. “It’s good,” he complimented. “Thank you for making it for me.”

And just like that, Sora was re-energised. “I know it’s a little burnt, but it’s much better than the first one I made!”

The microwave bleeped then, but Sora didn’t bother taking the food out. If Riku didn’t need food, there was no point in forcing him to eat. And that just meant they had more time for the other things he wanted to do.

“Riku, Riku~ Let’s go build a sandman!”

“A sandman?”

“Yeah! It’s like a snowman, but made of sand. It doesn’t snow here on Destiny Islands, so this is the next best thing.”

He grabbed Riku’s hand and began leading him out of the house. Sora was happy to ramble on about the benefits of using sand over snow, even though he had never actually seen snow before. This resulted in him promising to take Riku someplace snowy when he was older.

“That’s the play island,” Sora said once they were on the beach and he had set Riku to work in packing the sand to form a solid base. “I play there with Roxy and some of the other islander kids. There’s a hidden cave over there, we call it the Secret Place, but I can tell you about it because I trust you not to tell. Oh, a couple months back, we had this big race across the island and—”

And so Sora regaled Riku about whatever random anecdotes from the past year came to his mind as the two of them worked diligently to make their sandman take form.

“There!” Sora said as he pulled his hand back from where he had placed the final shell on the snowman’s face. He had placed two larger shells for eyes, and a row of little ones for his mouth. “Aw man, I forgot to grab a carrot for his nose…” Sora pouted. “Hey Riku, should we go back and—” he cut himself off when he saw Riku standing a few paces away, looking up at the sky. Stood there under the night sky, Riku glowed just like the moon. “Riku?”

“Ah, apologies,” Riku said, jolting out of whatever thoughts he had been lost in. “What were you saying?”

“…nothing,” Sora said, going over to him and standing by his side. He looked up, admiring the thousands of tiny pinpricks of light that covered the inky black sky. “Is that where your home is?” Sora asked. “Up there?”

Riku glanced down at his charge before gazing back up at the stars. “Something like that.”

“Do you live in heaven?”

“The place in which we dwell has many names. I suppose heaven is one of them.”

“Do you have lots of friends there?”

When Riku didn’t respond, Sora wondered if perhaps the guardian angel hadn’t heard his question. He opened his mouth to repeat it, but Riku eventually responded with:

“I have those that I can trust.”

Sora was savvy enough to know that ‘those that I can trust’ and ‘friends’ weren’t necessarily the same thing. As if sensing the question he was about to ask next, Riku ran his fingers through his long hair and said, “You are the first to call me ‘friend’.”

Something tugged on his heart a little harder at those words. Riku had said them matter-of-factly. Riku seemed to say everything like that: straightforward and neutral. Even if the words he spoke were actually pretty sad.

He’d never had a friend before Sora? Sora wondered how old Riku was. If he was a human, he might be in his early twenties, but Riku had stated plainly earlier that he wasn’t human. He could be one hundred or two thousand or a bajillion years old for all Sora knew, but in each instance it didn’t matter. No one should have to go even a minute without knowing they had friends.

He tugged on Riku’s robe and Riku looked down at him questioningly. “Come down,” Sora said, tugging more insistently on the robe.

“Down? Ah, you mean like this?” Riku knelt down on one knee, making it so that he was at eye-level with Sora. “What is it?” Riku asked. “Are you oka—” Riku’s words were completely cut off the instant tiny arms threw themselves about his neck in a warm hug.

Sora didn’t say anything, just wrapped his arms as tightly as he could around Riku. Riku, whose muscles tensed under his touch but didn’t move to pull away. Riku, whose body emitted a warmth that served to make Sora feel completely at peace. Riku, his guardian angel who had sworn to always protect him.

Riku, who only had one friend.

“Are you crying?” Riku asked after a long minute of silence had passed between them. It took Sora a moment to realise that he was. His body was shaking as tears fell from his eyes and he clung to Riku even more.

“Shh,” the angel soothed, “It’s okay.” And finally, _finally_ , Riku’s arms that had hung limp at his sides moved to return the hug. “It’s okay,” he repeated.

“I-I’ll be the best friend ever,” Sora sniffed, “I promise.”

“Thank you, Sora, but please do not worry about me. I’m not worth your tears.”

“You’re wrong,” Sora insisted, feeling that insistent tug on his heart again. This time, it hurt a little. “You said you’d always protect me, but what about you?”

“That isn’t something you need to concern yourself with. I know my duty. All you need to do is just be yourself.”

“But that’s so one-sided!” Sora protested. “It’s not fair. We’re friends, so I wanna take care of you, too.” He pulled back, wiping at his eyes with one hand. “Okay?”

Riku was giving him that look again, that one of astonishment and like Sora had just said something utterly unbelievable.

“It’s late,” Riku said by way of a reply. “Let’s get you to bed.” Riku picked Sora up effortlessly, and Sora only fussed a little bit at being carried back home. For all he wanted to protest, Riku was right: it was way past his bedtime, and all that crying had really taken it out of him.

“Remember this,” Sora murmured sleepily against Riku’s powerful chest, “I’ll pay you back. I’ll carry you one day.”

“The day you become taller than me?” Riku asked, a hint of amusement in his tone.

“Yeah.”

Riku made no sound as he glided over the threshold into his house, silently shutting the door behind them. In what seemed like an instant, Sora was being gently lowered into his bed, and Riku was taking great care to tuck him in.

“Thank you, Sora,” Riku murmured quietly. Sora didn’t think he had done anything that warranted thanks, and he peered sleepily up at his angel. He tried his best to memorise the contours of his face, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to see it again for another year.

“Merry Christmas,” he yawned, his heavy eyes finally falling shut.

“Merry Christmas.”

And then Riku was gone.

x~x~x~x~x

“Hey, why do you wear a dress?” Sora asked during their fifth Christmas together.

He and Riku were sat in his room playing video games with the volume on quietly so as not to wake anyone else. Riku looked the same again this year as he always had, and he was currently kneeling on his floor with the controller nestled comfortably in his hands. Sora was much more inelegant about it, sitting cross-legged one moment then haphazardly spreading out the next, unable to sit still for long.

His teachers often told him off for being restless and disruptive. Sora wondered if it would be the same next year when he started attending secondary school.

“It’s a robe,” Riku replied, pressing a button and causing the mech he was controlling to shoot a beam at Sora’s character.

Sora blocked it neatly and pressed a button that closed the distance between their characters and allowed him to get in a melee attack. He hummed in response to Riku’s reply. “Do you always wear that?”

“When I’m not fighting,” Riku said, clicking his tongue when his character’s health hit zero and the win registered as Sora’s. Sora had won all of their bouts since they had booted up _Verum Rex: Coliseum_ , a spin-off fighting game from the main _Verum Rex_ series. They ended up back on the character select page.

“Do you often fight?” Sora asked.

“I fight when necessary.”

“Like, against demons and stuff?”

Riku let out that breath he did sometimes, the one that sounded like it could have become a laugh if only he willed it. “Like demons and stuff,” he nodded.

“Are they strong?”

“I am stronger.” Sora looked over to Riku questioningly. “Theirs is a strength primarily aimed at destruction. My strength comes from my will to protect the things that matter.”

“Yeah? And what matters?”

Riku’s eyes glittered in the light of the television screen as he turned to regard Sora seriously. Sora wasn’t sure why, but his heart skipped a beat at that, and he quickly looked back to the screen when he felt his cheeks heat up slightly.

“You know, this guy always reminds me of you,” Sora said casually, hovering his cursor over Yozora so that his profile was displayed on the right side of the screen.

“Oh?” Riku looked at Yozora for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m not as cool as him. His battle attire is woefully inefficient, however. It just looks like regular human clothes.”

“And a dress is better?” Sora asked, laughing softly.

“Robe,” Riku corrected again, “And I told you, I don’t wear it when I fight.”

“So what do you wear?”

When Riku didn’t respond after a few seconds had passed, Sora looked back at the angel to see that his expression was one of deep thought. Sora kept quiet, knowing that Riku was currently weighing something up in his mind. Eventually, he turned to Sora with something that looked like a shadow of a smirk tugging on the left side of his mouth.

“Want to see?”

Sora’s eyes widened and he dropped his controller. “Seriously?” Riku nodded. “Yes!” he said excitedly, sitting up straighter from his place on the floor.

Riku stood up in one fluid movement and closed his eyes. When he next opened them, they were glowing brightly. Sora found that he couldn’t look away, even as particles of light began to circle Riku as if magnetised to his body. The light wasn’t _quite_ bright enough to be blinding, but it still hurt to watch even though Sora didn’t want to miss a second of what he was about to be shown.

He was pretty sure that this was yet another rule Riku was breaking for him. He wondered if Riku ever got in trouble for visiting him, or for doing things like this. The angel had said that the rules were more flexible on Christmas, but that didn’t stop Riku acting so careful about everything he did and every word he said.

Suddenly the light particles burst in an awesome display and Riku stood before him in full armour. The plating of it was a bright metallic blue, with liquid gold accents welded throughout. An ornate pauldron sat on his left shoulder, engraved with words in a language that Sora didn’t understand before the metal curved upwards in a beautiful steel imitation of an angel’s wing. A band of light had wound its way around Riku’s hair so that it was held atop his head in a high ponytail that cascaded like a concentrated river down his back.

All Sora could do was stare. For long minutes he stared at the coolest thing he had ever seen in his life, his mouth hanging open. Riku had always seemed cool to him, but this was just an entirely new level. He somehow seemed taller, an impressive figure of light that could keep even the deepest darkness at bay. He watched, enraptured, as Riku raised his right arm above his head and in a bright burst of light a splendid sword appeared in his hand. Sora actually squealed at that.

Sora felt bad for comparing Riku to a videogame character now. Stood before him was a powerful warrior unlike anything he had ever seen before.

“You’re so cool,” Sora finally managed once he found his voice again. “You look like a king.”

“A king?” Riku mused, before shaking his head, his ponytail swaying hypnotically with the action. “No, I am nothing so important.” With a clank of metal he knelt on one knee before Sora, eyes cast respectfully downwards. “I am merely a humble knight.”

Sora’s heart lurched at that, gazing at Riku with wide eyes. He wasn’t sure what to say in response to that, and so he said something entirely unrelated. “Wings.”

“What?”

“The only thing missing is wings,” Sora whispered. He’d been meaning to ask this since they first met, but he always ended up getting distracted and it slipped his mind. The angel on top of the tree had wings, but Riku didn’t.

“Ah,” Riku nodded in understanding. He paused, letting the silence stretch out until Sora felt an unfamiliar tension rise in his stomach. “…do you want to see?”

The brunette boy sucked in a breath. Riku was showing him a lot of new things this year. “Yes,” he breathed.

“As you wish.”

As if by magic, wings sprouted from Riku’s back, completely unperturbed by his heavy armour. In twists of holy flame they took shape, licking through the air in purposeful tendrils and entwining until two massive wings of pure light had taken shape. They were beautiful, and they were terrifying. It was a wonder any creature from any world engaged Riku in a fight. Surely, in the face of someone like this, they knew that only certain defeat awaited them.

Without really thinking about it, Sora reached out to brush his fingertips against the wings. They were warm to the touch, but they didn’t burn him. He lay his palm flat against them, but was pulled out of his reverie when he saw Riku shuddering.

“S-Sorry,” he said, quickly retracting his hand. “Riku? Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Riku replied, stretching his wings out so they were at their full wingspan. They nearly took up the entirety of Sora’s room. And then in an explosion of flame they were gone. “Apologies, I didn’t mean to make you worry. They’re just sensitive, so I don’t really use them if I can help it.”

“Oh,” Sora whispered. He couldn’t see Riku’s expression; he hadn’t stopped bowing his head this whole time. “Riku?” he tried again.

No response.

“I…” Sora carefully reached out and ran his fingers against the cool metal of the pauldron. “Thank you for showing me.”

They went back to playing videogames after that. Riku dispelled his armour and didn’t say much for the rest of the night. Riku wasn’t talkative at the best of times though, and Sora was long used to being the one to carry their conversations with whatever inane thing he felt like, because Riku was always happy to listen to him.

This time, though, things felt slightly different. Not by much; being with Riku was still comforting, was still _comfortable_ , but it felt like something very small had shifted that Christmas.

x~x~x~x~x

Things continued in this comfortable fashion for a couple more years. But then things began to change. Not on Riku’s side, at least, Sora didn’t think so. Riku always stayed the same, seemingly frozen in time. Always perfect. Always guarded. But what Sora wanted from Riku began to change.

Building sandmen with him became juvenile. Playing videogames with him became less appealing.

He wasn’t sure when it started, but he became distractingly obsessed with Riku’s mouth. It had always been a source of interest from the very beginning, because his Christmas tree angel didn’t have one. It had been a childlike curiosity. And ever since then it had held his attention. Usually Riku’s mouth took the form of a neutral line upon his face, but even guardian angels couldn’t keep up perfect masks of neutrality indefinitely.

Sora always noticed—was almost hyper aware of—the way Riku’s lips would quirk either up or down at the edges in the beginnings of smiles and frowns, but never committing to either. He wondered what they would look like, and always tried his best to make Riku smile and laugh during his visits.

Laugh. That was another thing Riku had never really done, because Sora didn’t count those odd little quirks of exhaled breath as proper laughs. Riku’s words and tone also carried that same hesitant neutrality. He wondered what Riku would say were he to just speak his mind. There were so many words and so many sounds that he wanted to hear from those lips.

And they looked so soft… that was one of the newer thoughts that kept spinning around in Sora’s head until he felt dizzy. Riku was tall and muscular and unfathomably strong but his mouth, in sharp contrast, was plush and inviting. His lips reminded Sora of delicate pink rose petals, and the longer he allowed these sorts of thoughts to dominate, the more he wondered what kissing Riku would be like.

Now that he was twelve, kissing didn’t seem as gross as it had done when he was younger. It was something he was curious about, and merely became more curious about it when he found out that Roxas had already done it.

“Wait, _what_?” Sora had asked, looking at his brother with a shocked expression.

Roxas just shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. He’d had it cut recently, and he had started styling it differently from Sora’s spikes. “I didn’t really plan it,” he said, “She just pointed upwards and there was a mistletoe there, and then she kinda leant in, so I did too.”

Sora was a little sore that Roxas, the _younger_ of the two of them, had the edge on him in this. Usually he blazed forward and Roxas followed, but things were changing. Things were always changing. “What was it like?” he asked.

Roxas just shrugged again. “Okay, I guess. Felt a little weird? I don’t really get what the fuss is about.”

And yet Roxas’ less than enthusiastic review on kissing did absolutely nothing to dampen Sora’s own curiosity. It just served to ignite it further.

And so that Christmas he made sure that he had a sprig of mistletoe on standby, nervously shoved into his pocket.

Riku appeared in his usual burst of light at his usual time of midnight looking like he usually did with his usual expression of neutrality. And, as usual, his lips quirked upwards just so, not a full smile, never a full smile, when he saw Sora waiting for him, also as usual.

“Merry Christmas, Sora,” he greeted, and Sora was both elated at hearing Riku’s voice again and annoyed at having it be full of that neutral sort of warmth.

The tug on his heart, the one that pulled him towards Riku, had been getting stronger as the years passed. Once faint, it was now getting to the point that it couldn’t be ignored. Sora wondered what the tug would feel like in a few more years.

“Merry Christmas,” Sora returned.

They were silent for a few long moments, and Riku raised an eyebrow. He was probably wondering why, as usual, Sora hadn’t excitedly launched into this year’s Christmas itinerary.

“So,” he said after a moment, “What is it to be this year?”

Sora was suddenly struck with the realisation that Riku had never volunteered suggestions. He always just went along with Sora’s whims without fail.

“W-What would you like to do?” he asked, licking his lips nervously.

“Whatever it is you would like to,” Riku replied, and Sora wasn’t at all surprised with the answer.

They lapsed once more into silence, and Riku used the intervening time to shuffle almost imperceptibly from side to side. This was probably the closest he would get to full-blown awkwardness. Sora was distracted by it.

Riku was distracting.

Riku was pretty.

Riku’s lips looked really soft.

“I want to kiss,” Sora finally said, and Riku stilled.

“Sorry?” Riku asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sora hadn’t meant to say it so soon, but he’d said it now, so he went over to the sofa and clambered on top of it so that he stood nearly equal with Riku’s impressive height. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out the slightly crushed sprig of mistletoe, holding it above his head.

“I want to kiss,” Sora repeated. “We have to; it’s the rule. You have to kiss under mistletoe.”

Sora watched as Riku’s eyes traced the outline of the plant before looking at Sora. Sora knew Riku well enough to know that he was thinking it through, the gears whirring in his head as he took the time to carefully construct the perfect response.

“Well,” Riku said carefully after agonising seconds of waiting, “If that is the rule, I suppose I have no choice.”

Sora’s eyes widened and within an instant his pulse was skyrocketing. “R-R-Really?” he squeaked. Just like that? It was just as easy as that?

Riku took a step forward so that he was stood directly in front of Sora atop the sofa, and Sora’s face was red hot as he once more locked his gaze onto Riku’s pillowy lips. It was too much; he felt like he might die. He scrunched his eyes closed, body shaking in anticipation.

He felt Riku gently take the hand that wasn’t holding the mistletoe and raise it up. For the briefest of moments he felt warm breath ghost over the back of his hand, before there was a soft press of lips. Sora’s eyes flew open just in time to see Riku release his hand and take a neat step backwards.

“Wait…” Sora said, eyebrows furrowing.

“Did I not follow the rule?”

“Y-You did, but…” Sora frowned. “That’s not what I meant…”

“So, what else did you have planned?” Riku asked, swiftly changing the subject. It was clear that on the business of kissing, Riku had nothing more to contribute.

Sora’s shoulders slumped. “That’s not fair, Riku,” he mumbled, climbing down from the sofa. He felt utterly defeated.

“How about we watch a film?”

“Whatever,” Sora muttered.

Well, if nothing else, at least Riku had finally deigned to offer a suggestion of something to do. In the grand scheme of things, that was probably something.

x~x~x~x~x

Leaving things like that would have been easy, but Sora found that it simply wasn’t possible. Riku rejecting him did absolutely nothing to dissuade him from wanting to kiss him. And then, as the years wore on, things escalated.

It had started with a dream that had Sora waking up sticky in the morning. And from there it just kept spiralling out of control. Whenever Sora thought about Riku, he’d become unbalanced inside. Something in his abdomen would tense up, and there would be a growing insistence between his legs.

The first time Sora had indulged it and taken himself in his hand, Riku had been at the forefront of his heated mind. What would his lips taste like? What would those powerful muscles feel like under Sora’s touch? How easy would it be to mark flawless porcelain skin, and how long would such marks remain for?

It was an endless tumbling of questions that his fevered mind would supply vivid answers to until Sora was choking on a gasp of Riku’s name as he spilled over the edge.

He felt bad after the first time, as if his actions had tainted Riku somehow. Soon after he learnt that what he was doing wasn’t odd, necessarily, but the way he was going about it was. His classmates began talking about which girls in their class were the cutest, and their fascination lay firmly with the tantalising roundness of soft breasts rather than the sharper angles of hard pectorals.

Sora had tried to copy them. An unspoken brotherhood existed where they would give each other tips and pass around pictures sequestered from dirty magazines found stuffed in their fathers' drawers and tell each other about unspeakable websites with even more unspeakable things contained within them.

It only worked to a limited extent. The images may have been initially arousing, but whenever Sora got into it and he lost himself to the sensation, he lost control of what was on his mind and it inevitably always ended up back on Riku.

As Christmas grew closer, Sora began to panic. Did Riku know what he was doing? Was he watching him somewhere? What if he hated Sora now?

These paralysing thoughts stayed his hand for a few weeks but, being a healthy pubescent boy, his libido cared little for such worries and soon the dreams returned at a higher frequency and a higher intensity.

Sora had always waited diligently in his living room for Riku’s arrival at midnight when Christmas Eve became Christmas Day, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so that year. It was their ninth Christmas together, nine years of knowing Riku, but he didn’t know how he was supposed to face his beloved angel when he was like this.

Riku found him on the play island, lying down on the shore and staring up at the sky. He approached the brunette tentatively and clearly wanted to ask why Sora hadn’t been there to greet him as usual, but he didn’t voice it.

“Merry Christmas, Sora,” he said by way of a greeting, Riku’s voice causing the maddening stirrings of affection and arousal to mingle together within him.

“Yeah,” Sora replied.

Riku waited patiently, and Sora eventually sighed and gestured to the space next to him. Riku sat down delicately, and Sora made the mistake of glancing up at him. Riku’s robe was loose, and one of the straps was hanging off his shoulder.

Sora swallowed as his eyes zeroed in on the pale expanse of skin, luminous with heavenly light. If Riku noticed him staring, he didn’t say or do anything. He seemed content to stare up at the stars, and now that Sora had started indulging he couldn’t stop.

His eyes flicked up and took in the sharp definition of Riku’s jawline, before wandering upwards even more and noting how long Riku’s eyelashes were. As he had done many times in the past, he got stuck on Riku’s lips. They were so close, and Sora wanted nothing more than to reach out and run his thumb over them, to lean in and press his own lips to them.

He’d had more thoughts about Riku’s mouth recently. Sometimes he’d dream about what it would be like to have those lips wrapped intimately around him.

He could feel the familiar tightening of his pants.

Aborting the dangerous sight, he trailed his gaze downwards and along the length of Riku’s body. His long legs stretched out against the sand, and his robe had ridden up slightly to reveal a hint of his powerful thighs.

“Ugh,” Sora groaned, covering his face with his hands. This was no good. He was useless like this. He was a terrible friend.

“Are you okay?” Riku asked, his voice laced with concern. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear it laced with. He wanted to hear it breathless, to hear it gasping his name, to be overtaken with anything but affectionate _neutrality_.

Sora quickly stood up, angling his body away so as to hide his crotch from view.

“Sora?”

“Just go home.”

“What?” Riku was standing up as well now, and he reached out and grabbed Sora’s hand. Sora’s heart thudded painfully against his ribcage at the action. “Sora, what’s wrong?”

“I said go home,” Sora repeated, biting his bottom lip harshly.

“Look at me,” Riku said. When Sora failed to comply, Riku easily pulled on his arm to spin Sora around.

Sora’s face was a giant stain of red. Red from embarrassment, arousal, anger, shame. Maybe all of this was displayed openly on his face, because Riku’s eyebrows furrowed and he released Sora’s hand. He opened his mouth to say something, but this was more than Sora could take now.

“Just leave me the hell alone!” Sora yelled. “Go home! I don’t want you here this Christmas!” And with that, he swiftly turned and began sprinting as best as he could across the beach.

Had he looked back in that moment, he would have seen the utterly heartbroken expression that crumpled Riku’s face into something that was far from perfection. But he didn’t. And when he did finally look back, Riku was gone.

x~x~x~x~x

The Christmases following this one were fraught.

Sora knew that Riku was for him. But the ways in which he wanted him definitely crossed a line. Riku would cause his heart to swell, his mind to be at peace, and his body to heat up in ways that no one else could manage.

He’d tried, of course. Riku was distracting, but he’d tried to find an even bigger one. He had tried dating, but his relationships never lasted long. It was as if his partners sensed they were coming in a distant second to someone, and Sora wasn’t able to keep up the pretence and allay their fears that this was the case.

Christmas became an odd combination of the best and worst day of the year. It was the only time he could see Riku, and despite the powerful lust that ruled his senses when it came to the angel, he knew that he loved him. Being able to see the person he loved ought to have been a happy occasion and a cause to celebrate. But Riku was also unattainable, and Sora’s angst over this matter filled him with dread when he knew he’d have to face the object of his desires and destruction.

The worst Christmas probably happened when Sora was sixteen. He hadn’t been there to greet Riku at midnight, as he hadn’t done the past couple of years. Riku came searching for him, as he usually did, and all he had done was peek his head around Sora’s door.

Sora had met him with vitriol. “Don’t you know how to knock?!” he had shouted, waking up Roxas in the process. His brother had come running into his room to check if he was okay, but Riku had long since disappeared in a burst of light.

He didn’t return that Christmas, and Sora didn’t blame him.

He never would have blamed Riku for stopping the Christmas visits, but the angel never did. He showed up again the next year, but Sora wasn’t aware of this until a few hours into the morning. He was in a crappy mood and felt like snacking on some cookies, and so he had headed to the kitchen at around three in the morning.

And there, in his living room, Riku was standing in front of the tree, looking very unsure of what to do with himself.

“Riku?” Sora asked, and the angel jumped slightly at his voice.

“Oh, Sora,” he managed after a moment. “M-Merry Christmas.”

Sora hadn’t ever heard Riku stutter before.

“Have you been there this whole time?” Sora asked, walking over to the angel.

Riku nodded his head.

Sora carefully reached out and ran a thumb across Riku’s cheek. He didn’t need to stand on anything to be able to do that now. Riku was still taller than him, and honestly Sora had needed to make peace with the fact that he probably wouldn’t overtake the other, but he didn’t seem as intimidatingly tall as he once had.

In fact, stood there with slightly hunched shoulders, the soft glow of the fairy lights and his own skin highlighting his trepidation, he appeared smaller than he ever had done before.

“Oh,” Sora said quietly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Why didn’t you come and find me?”

Riku gave him a look that tugged so harshly on his heart that Sora was temporarily winded. Sora breathed in deeply, doing his best to recover, and he recalled the dreadful way he had treated Riku last Christmas. Well, not just last Christmas. Most of the recent ones.

“I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to do,” Riku explained after a moment, speaking these words with extra care than usual.

Sora smiled sadly. If Riku knew what Sora wanted him to do, he’d probably never get to see Riku again. But it wasn’t as if his recent actions had given Riku the impression that Sora still wanted him around. That was why he had stood for hours in his living room, on some tenuous hope that Sora would feel like coming to meet him. And that hadn’t even been Sora’s intent; he had come down for cookies, for crying out loud!

God, what was he doing?

“Here, sit down,” Sora said gently, leading the other to the sofa. Riku did as commanded and sat down. “You want a cookie? I know you don’t need to eat, but, yanno,” Sora shrugged. “It would be rude not to offer.”

“I’m fine,” Riku replied.

Sora nodded and went and fetched some cookies and a glass of milk for himself, then sat down next to Riku. He wondered if Riku was aware that Sora had deliberately left as much space as possible between them.

For a moment the only sounds in the room was Sora munching on his cookies. He cleared two of them before he finally got up the nerve to speak again. “Why do you keep coming back?” he asked.

“I gave you my word. And my word is my bond.”

“Even though I’ve been a totally shitty friend to you?” Sora asked, taking a large gulp of his milk.

He waited for Riku to come up with his politically correct answer. This one took him longer than usual to formulate. “A shitty friend is still a friend. And you…” Riku was wringing his hands together in his lap. “You’re the only friend I have.”

In all of these years, Riku was still able to surprise Sora. Maybe it was because the other was so guarded all of the time that actually there were a tonne of firsts he was yet to experience. In that moment, there were two firsts: hearing Riku swear, and watching him wring his hands in the most obvious display of awkwardness he had witnessed from him thus far. Then there was the first from earlier, the one where he heard Riku stutter.

Riku’s ability to make him an emotional wreck with his words, though, that had been a pretty constant thing from the beginning.

“I’m sorry,” Sora said, feeling a lump in his throat.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.” He swallowed thickly. “If your word is your bond… what if I let you take it back? I can release you from the bond, can’t I?”

“Please don't!” Riku said quickly, too quickly for him to have really thought about that response. He looked at Sora with wide eyes, and Sora was pretty sure he was mirroring the expression.

Just now, was that… was that the first proper, uncensored response Riku had given him?

“Four firsts in one night,” Sora murmured, chuckling lightly. “You’re spoiling me, Riku.”

“Sorry?”

“Never mind,” Sora shook his head. “But what did you mean, you don’t want me to release you? Isn’t it a pain having to visit me each Christmas, especially when I’m not even that nice to you?”

“I… don’t really mind it.” And that was an obvious lie. “I like these visits. I like being able to see you. It’s… fine if you don’t like seeing me. I’ll make sure to stay out of your way. So please let me keep my word.”

Riku was so earnest. Even when he lied, he was lying in earnest, trying to protect Sora’s own feelings. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but it must really upset Riku having his one friend treat him so poorly. And yet here he was, willing to tolerate all of that just to be able to glance at Sora for even a moment.

Sora didn’t really think about it when he slid across the sofa and closed the distance between them, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Sora?” Riku asked, but Sora just held him tighter, burying his face into Riku’s shoulder. “Are you crying?"

He was. He couldn’t seem to stem the flow of tears as he clung to Riku desperately.

“Hey,” he soothed, carefully bringing one arm up to pat at Sora’s back. “I told you, didn’t I? You don’t need to worry about me. I’m not worth your tears.”

“You’re wrong,” Sora said through trembling lips. “You _are_ worth them. You’re worth _everything_. You deserve the best, Riku, you deserve so much more than what I’ve given you. I’ve been so horrible to you, I-I’m so sorry. It’s just that when I’m near you I can’t help it, you make me… m-make me…”

It was hell. Not being able to keep his torrent of feelings at bay. Not being able to disentangle his sincere wish to take care of Riku from his carnal desires for the angel. He loved him, and resented it. Or maybe he just resented himself and his weakness for not being able to escape from the fact that Riku was the reason this life was so beautiful, no matter how unbearable it became.

“You make me crazy,” he mumbled against warm skin, inhaling deeply as if he could take all of Riku in just like this. “I don’t deserve you. I’m blessed to have you as my angel, and I’m blessed to have met you. I’m glad you wanna keep seeing me, a-and I’ll be better, okay? I promise. Because even if it sometimes feels like hell, I know that heaven is wherever you are.”

He heard Riku inhale sharply. “That is blasphemy.”

“That is the truth.”

Sora pulled back and smiled at Riku, who looked like he was struggling to settle on any particular emotion. Sora couldn’t help but find this incredibly endearing. After a moment Riku reached out and gently wiped away what remained of Sora’s tears with his fingertips, leaving warm tingles in their wake.

And Sora figured that he’d already come this far, so he moved one of his hands to the back of Riku’s head and smoothed his fingers through silvery silk as he moved forward and brought their lips together.

The kiss didn’t last long, only a few seconds at most, and really it was just a tame pressing of their lips. But it still made Sora’s heart flutter, having partially satisfied the tug’s desire to be as close to Riku as possible.

He immediately buried his burning face back in Riku’s shoulder after the kiss. He was kind of curious about Riku’s expression, but he felt that his own ridiculously goofy and lovesick grin in that moment was just a bit too incriminating to show his angel.

“Sora?” Riku asked after a moment. “What was—”

“Wanna build a sandman?” Sora suddenly asked, cutting him off.

“Sorry?”

“We haven’t done that in a while, right?” he laughed, standing up quickly. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at Riku’s face; he still couldn’t believe that he had really just kissed him. But he held out his hand, and Riku only took a couple of seconds before he took it.

“Okay,” he said, and Sora was pretty sure that he could die and go to heaven right then.

Heaven was in Riku’s arms anyway, so it’s not like he’d end up going too far.

x~x~x~x~x

The new year brought with it big changes.

Sora turned eighteen and marked the occasion with the biggest cake he could find before going out partying with some friends and dragging Roxas along. His brother had bleached his hair a couple of years ago and was now fully committed to the blonde look. He had initially complained about Sora’s party venues of choice, mainly because he preferred rock music to the upbeat pop tunes Sora was dancing to, but Roxas soon ceased his complaints when a petite girl with a pixie cut dragged him onto the dance floor.

A few months later had Sora seeing out the end of his schooling and one of the most stressful exam periods of his life. All his hard work was rewarded when he got an acceptance letter from Traverse Town University.

He enjoyed a lazy summer vacation, spending most of his time on the play island and swimming in the sea. And before long, for the first time in his life, he left the islands on the small ferry that would take him to the mainland within three hours. And from there he boarded the train that would take him to Traverse Town.

City life was completely different from the islander lifestyle. Everything was fast and busy, an amorphous blob of sight and colour and sound.

He hadn’t been prepared for Freshers’ Week at Traverse Town University. He knew that such weeks typically had no rules, but he didn’t realise how fully the new intake of students would take this to heart. Every night brought with it a different bar crawl and every morning featured a hangover more impressive than the last. Sora wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but half of his wardrobe suddenly comprised of clothing branded with the TTU logo and he found himself enrolled onto the swim team after he had drunkenly boasted about how, being an islander, he could totally swim the entire ocean if he felt like it.

Amid the lectures and assignments and club commitments, Sora found his social circle expanding. He was good natured and easy going and people kind of just gravitated towards him, and Sora had always been thrilled to make more friends. He met a guy called Ephemer during Freshers’ Week who was on the same course as him, and the two became fast friends. Then there was a guy in the year above him called Demyx, who he met during the first swim practice of the term.

Skuld, Tidus, Luneth, Kairi… the list of new people in his life just kept getting bigger.

“Who’s Riku?” Kairi asked him one day when the two of them were sat in Kupo Café, diligently working on assignments.

Sora nearly spilt his coffee all over his lap. “W-What? How do you know that name?” he gaped.

Kairi giggled at him. “You were mumbling his name when you fell asleep in our lecture yesterday.”

Sora felt his cheeks flush.

“Oh yeah? I did?”

“Yup,” she hummed. “And Luneth said you called him an ‘ugly Riku’ one time when you got smashed over at Club Chocobo.”

“Oh my god,” Sora whined, hiding his face behind his hands. “I didn’t.”

“You totally did,” Kairi was laughing now. “And now I’m curious. Luneth is, like, super good-looking. It’s hard to imagine him being an ugly version of anyone.”

“I was drunk, I didn’t mean it,” Sora tried to say in his defence.

“Stop dodging my question. Who’s Riku?”

“Umm…”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

Sora squeaked in response. Kairi took this to mean ‘yes’.

“Oh my god! You need to show me a picture of him! I can’t believe you never told me that you have a boyfriend.”

“W-Well, technically speaking, he’s not really—”

“Is he back on the islands?”

“Uh, well, kind of. That’s where we meet every year—”

“Every year? You mean he doesn’t live there?”

“Well the thing about Riku is that he’s, ah, foreign? Yeah, he’s not from around here, so—”

“So he comes to visit you on the islands!” Kairi continued her latest trend of not letting Sora finish a sentence. “That’s so romantic~ Tell him to come and visit you here! I want to meet him.”

Sora was powerless to stop the word spreading about his insanely hot foreign boyfriend who flew in every year to be with his beloved. Kairi had clearly embellished what little she had to go on and their friends were more than happy to add their own nonsense into the equation.

Sora found that he couldn’t be too mad about it though. Practically none of it was true, but to hear people talking about him and Riku as if they were a couple made his heart perform acrobatics he was so happy.

It also made him miss Riku.

And also… it made Sora realise how lonely he was, even surrounded as he was by friends.

By the time the first term drew to a close and Christmas vacation kicked in, Sora couldn’t get home fast enough. As much as he loved his friends, and as fun as the swim club was, university life was overwhelming.

After the hours-long trip from TTU to his home, Sora was all too happy to grab Roxas in a friendly headlock and mess up his blonde locks, while Roxas tried and failed to pretend to be mad about it. He hugged his parents and then went to survey the Christmas tree that year.

“Here,” Roxas said, holding the little porcelain angel out to him. “We figured you’d want to be the one to put him on the top.”

Sora laughed softly. “You figured correctly.” He reached up and carefully placed the angel atop his perch, then pulled back to smile at the comforting sight. “Only nine more sleeps,” he murmured.

Nine more sleeps until he could see Riku again.

The time passed slowly, as if time itself was mocking him. Christmas Eve was somehow the worst. Roxas had gone off somewhere with his friends, and Sora sat in the living room watching as the second hand took its sweet time working its way around the clock face.

Sora’s nerves felt frazzled and for a mad two minutes he convinced himself that midnight would simply never arrive, and Christmas wouldn’t be coming that year. But then the second hand finally ticked its way across the line, and Riku appeared in his usual burst of bright light.

“Oh, Sora.” Riku sounded surprised to see him. That’s right; Sora hadn’t greeted him these last few times. The angel seemed pleased to see him though, his mouth still not quite pulling into a full smile but certainly getting closer than any previous year. “Merry—”

Riku cut himself off once Sora had launched forward and pulled him into a tight embrace. “Merry Christmas, Riku.”

“…Are you going to cry?”

Sora burst out laughing. “C’mon, Riku, lemme hug you without crying for once. I’m just happy to see you!”

“Oh.” Tentatively, almost mechanically, Riku rested his cheek atop Sora’s head. “I’m glad.”

Sora felt his chest constrict, his heart overflowing with a hot waterfall of love for his awkward guardian angel. “Let’s go out tonight."

“Okay.” Riku was agreeable as always. “Where would you like to go?”

“Let’s just see where the night takes us,” Sora said decidedly, reaching for Riku’s hand and twining their fingers together. He tried not to laugh at how Riku stared at this new connection for far longer than was necessary.

Sora didn’t call it a date out loud, but he realised halfway through the night that he was definitely treating it like one. They walked hand in hand around the island and Sora regaled Riku of the crazy times he’d had at uni so far, and of all the new and interesting people he had met.

At one point they came across a beach bar playing romantic festive favourites, and even though Sora hadn’t the faintest idea how to dance, he still felt emboldened to place a hand on Riku’s waist and lead them in a very simple shuffle back and forth.

Riku didn’t comment on his lack of dance skill and thankfully, none of the patrons commented on why Sora was slow dancing on his own. They shot him a few odd looks, but when he could rest his cheek against Riku’s shoulder and hold him close like this, Sora didn’t care about what anyone else thought.

The only one who mattered was Riku, and _his_ thoughts were something that Sora was very much interested in.

At two a.m. they took a rowboat over to the play island. Riku had insisted on being the one to paddle and seeing as it was the first request he had made of Sora that night, the brunette reluctantly relented. Before long they were sat on the shore and gazing up at the stars, and Sora dared to ask the question that burnt at the edges of his mind every time they were together.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

Riku didn’t reply. Sora saw him thinking about what answer to give, but in the end he didn’t say anything.

“Hmm? You ignoring me?” Sora teased.

“No,” Riku said quickly, turning to look at him. He flinched away when Sora playfully flicked his nose. “Hey!”

“C’moooon Rikuuuu, what are you thinking?”

Riku was thinking again. What was he so afraid of that he’d vet everything before he said it? “It’s not really my place to say,” was his eventual response.

Sora frowned and placed a hand on Riku’s shoulder. “Hey, what’s that about? Is someone gonna smite you if you speak your mind?"

“Well, no… but it would still be wrong for me to do so.”

“Aren’t they flexible with the rules on Christmas? Surely you can tell me, just this once?”

“…”

“Sorry. It’s just hard for me to know what you want sometimes. You always just go along with what I want, but you’re probably tired of doing that, right? I’m sorry for keeping you out so long. I’ll stop now.”

“No!” Sora regarded Riku’s outburst with surprise. But even more surprising was the merest dusting of pink across Riku’s cheeks. “I-I mean…” Riku cleared his throat and brought his legs up against his chest. He was looking resolutely down as he practically whispered, “I’m really happy.”

All the air left Sora’s lungs in a rush at that. “Y-You are?” he choked out.

Riku nodded.

“Oh man,” Sora ran his hands through his hair, grinning from ear to ear. “This is bad. I’m so happy I feel like I could burst.” He reached for Riku’s hand and laced their fingers together again. “I love you.”

Sora felt Riku’s fingers flex at his words, and when he looked over his brow was slightly furrowed. Sora just shook his head and let out a chuckle. “What? You aren’t actually surprised, right?”

“No,” Riku said after a moment. “I just didn’t think you would actually say it.”

The air chimed with Sora’s laughter. “Yeah, I guess it did take me forever to say it. But right then seemed like the perfect time, yanno?”

“…”

“Huh? Riku? Uh, are you okay?”

“…I might burst,” Riku muttered.

And that had Sora cracking up again.

They chatted until dawn broke on the horizon, at which point Sora’s eyelids had become heavy with sleep. He put up little resistance when Riku led him back to the rowboat and took them back to the main island. On principle he didn’t let Riku tuck him in, but he did reach for his hand and placed a small kiss on Riku’s palm.

“Promise to be here when I wake up?” he asked.

Riku always tended to disappear once Sora had gone to bed, but whenever Sora thought about this he couldn’t help but think it was a total waste of the twenty-four hour window that they had.

“I’ll be here,” Riku nodded, and this was enough to pacify Sora as he let sleep overcome him.

He woke at noon to the sound of Roxas calling him a lazy bum before a pillow swiftly made impact with his face.

“Ow, holy shit Rox!” Sora hollered before crumpling into laughter. He picked up the pillow used to assault him and flung it at Roxas, who was cackling and making a speedy getaway through the door. He wasn’t quite quick enough and Sora managed to hit him square on the arse.

Roxas cursed under his breath and Sora grinned triumphantly, before becoming aware of Riku watching this entire exchange with interest from the foot of his bed.

“Is that how you like to be woken up?” Riku asked after a moment.

“God no, Roxy is just an asshole,” Sora laughed, before his features softened. “You’re still here,” he smiled.

“I gave my word.”

“Yeah.” Sora kicked off his covers and used one arm to pull Riku into a quick hug. “Christmas around here is kinda crazy, but I’d like it if you stuck around.”

And Riku did. Sora couldn’t really afford him the attention he’d have liked to, but he didn’t want to alert his family to something being out of the ordinary. If he started striking up a conversation with thin air, that would definitely put a damper on the holiday. And so he had to settle for shooting Riku affectionate smiles every now and then when no one was looking, or giving Riku’s hand a quick squeeze.

Riku didn’t seem to mind sticking around. He bobbed his head along to the Christmas hits his father was blasting out over the speakers and surreptitiously stole a ball of stuffing when his mother wasn’t looking and chewed on it thoughtfully. He was the invisible fifth member of their group that night as he sat on an empty chair at the table, listening to the familial banter.

Sora got the giggles super badly during the family games later on into the evening though. Riku helped him cheat during any card games by telling him Roxas’ hand, and watching Roxas puff up like an irate bird after his third loss set Sora off. And then during their game of Pictionary, Riku would pull a face at all of their pitiful drawing attempts after sneaking a peak at the card denoting what had to be drawn.

“All of you are very bad at this,” Riku commented about halfway through the game, and Sora practically doubled over with how hard he was laughing. His parents thought he had lost the plot a bit, but Sora’s laughter turned out to be infectious and soon his mother was helplessly giggling as well, followed by his father’s loud guffaws, and even Roxas couldn’t hold out in the end as tears fell from his eyes with the force of his laughter.

But things soon calmed down, and Sora sobered up when he realised it was already ten p.m. Just two more hours, and then he had to get through another year before he could be with Riku again.

He excused himself early, making up something about feeling a little faint after all the laughing, and headed up to his room. Like a loyal follower, Riku was right behind him.

“You’re sad,” Riku commented when Sora sat down heavily on his bed.

“I guess.”

“Why? You were having so much fun earlier.”

“You have to go away again soon, and then I have to wait out yet another year before I can see you again.”

Sora looked up when Riku didn’t say anything, and he could see the angel struggling very hard to come up with some sort of acceptable response.

“Stop thinking about the correct thing to say,” Sora said, and Riku paused. “Don’t think twice. Tell me what you honestly want to say.”

He patted the space next to him, and Riku tentatively made his way over and perched on the edge of the bed.

“I don’t think it is good for you to be thinking in terms of waiting the year out,” Riku said, heeding Sora’s request for honesty. “This is your life, Sora. I’m working hard to guard it, so I would like you to enjoy it. You should live for every day, not just live for Christmas. Especially if your reason for doing so is because of me.”

“I wouldn’t have to live for one day if you just stayed with me.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Just because I know that doesn’t make me fine with it!” Sora groaned in frustration. “How am I supposed to feel, knowing that I can only see the one I love for one day a year?”

“That’s the other thing,” Riku said carefully. “Those feelings aren’t supposed to be for me. It would be better for you to meet a human partner, and one day you can start a family.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” Sora insisted.

“I am a dead end. You should just forget about—”

“I can’t!” He grabbed onto Riku’s shoulders and shook them, “Don’t ask me to. I can’t.”

“But Sora,” Riku tried to reason with him, back to using that diplomatic voice of his. Sora didn’t want to hear it, so he pushed Riku down. It was only then that he fully realised the situation: Riku was right here on his bed, looking up at him with those brilliant eyes. Sora hovered above him and licked his lips nervously.

Wasn’t this something he had fantasised about for years?

He felt that tug on his heart, more powerful now than it had ever been, and Sora surrendered to it.

“Don’t ask me to forget,” he murmured, dipping his head down and pressing his lips to Riku’s neck. “I can’t.” He kissed a trail up to Riku’s ear and lightly bit the shell of it, feeling Riku shudder beneath him. “I’ve tried, but it’s no use. You’re all that I think about. You’re the only one for me.”

He balanced with one hand while he brought the other up to smooth along hard planes of muscle, stopping when he got to Riku’s chest. The angel was clearly trying to be neutral about this whole thing, as with most things, but his powerful heartbeat was elevated beneath Sora’s palm and belied that he was still holding himself back.

Sora wished that Riku would just let go.

He moved to capture Riku’s lips in a kiss and wasted no time in tilting his head so that he could deepen it. Riku let him do so, and Sora was finally blessed with the opportunity of exploring the mouth that had enraptured him. He nudged down the fabric of Riku’s robe so that it pooled off of his shoulder and ran curious fingertips along the outline of his defined pectorals before focusing his attention on a nipple.

Riku made a keening noise in the back of his throat that went straight to Sora’s crotch, and he felt the nub harden beneath his touch.

“At least your body is honest,” Sora said, and the deepness of his own voice surprised him. It seemed to affect Riku as well, who shivered at the sound of it and shifted his hips just the merest amount. “Oh, you want me to touch you there, too?”

Riku neither confirmed nor denied this, but when Sora trailed his hand downwards and could feel hardened and heated flesh through the material of Riku’s robe, he knew that he had been correct.

His own length was aching. He had barely gotten started but to be doing this with Riku in real life, outside of any fantasy, was beyond bliss. He couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ —wait anymore.

He clumsily pulled himself out of his trousers and underwear, shucking them down only as far as they needed to go, before pulling Riku’s robe up. The fact that the angel had nothing on underneath short-circuited Sora’s brain for a moment, the implications of it so erotic that he very nearly came right then and there.

It was only through sheer force of will that he clung on, reaching out and running his fingers along Riku’s smooth length. God, even that was pretty. Riku was just stunning.

The angel’s eyes had fallen shut and his breath was coming out in short, delicate bursts from those petal-like lips. Sora couldn’t help but dip down to kiss them again as he wrapped his hand more fully around Riku and began to pump in earnest.

Riku groaned low and long into Sora’s mouth and the sound embarrassingly had him _leaking_ , a few drops of the clear liquid falling and beading on Riku’s marble skin.

Sora removed his hand and he could feel Riku’s entire body flex in disappointment. Sora only managed a breathless chuckle at this before he brought his hips down so that both of their members were sliding against one another, and Sora didn’t have any hope of quieting the loud moan that ripped its way through him from his core.

He rolled his hips again, trying to establish some sort of rhythm while he still had the presence of mind to do so. The sound of his own pleasured breaths nearly drowned out Riku’s little gasps of Sora’s name, but when Sora heard him his pace became erratic.

“I love you,” he rambled as he felt a tight heat coiling in his abdomen, “I love you, Riku. I want you more than anything.” He desperately sought out Riku’s hand with his, holding onto it, linking them together. “There’s no one else for me. Y-You’re perfect. Us—we—like this—we’re— _ah_!”

Lasting longer was an impossibility given the years of pent up sexual frustration Sora had finally been able to unleash. He hadn’t even put a dent in the things that he wanted to do, but in that moment of white-hot pleasure this rather ungraceful display was utterly perfect.

He spilled his seed over Riku’s abdomen, and after a couple of quick strokes to Riku’s own member, the angel came tumbling after him into the fever pitch of orgasm.

Sora’s breathing was ragged once he had come down a bit from the high, and he collapsed onto the hard body below him. Riku’s skin was hotter than normal, covered in a light sheen of sweat. Sora’s entire weight upon him didn’t seem to bother him at all as he wrapped powerful arms around Sora and held him close in the aftermath.

He could stay like this. Caught up in Riku’s embrace was the one place he would find peace. All he wanted to do was be close to him, so then why… why…

“Are you crying?” Riku asked, breathless.

Sora just clung to the angel harder, finding purchase against strong shoulders as his body was wracked with sobs.

“Don’t leave me,” he begged. “Please. I can’t do this. I j-just want to be with you. Please don’t… don’t leave me.”

Riku reached up and gently cupped Sora’s cheek. Sora hiccupped, his tears falling down onto Riku’s own cheeks as he waited for Riku to reassure him, or say that there could be another Christmas miracle that would let him stay even just for a minute longer, or some other rule that they could exploit.

But none of that came. Riku just gently wiped the tears from Sora’s eyes and sent him a sad smile as the numbers on the digital clock on Sora’s bedside table flicked over to herald the start of a new day.

And then he was gone. Loving embrace and powerful, comforting body were gone and Sora sank, alone, into his sheets with only the memory to comfort him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be a one-shot. Ha.
> 
> Chapters 2 and 3 will be posted super soon, definitely before the year is up. I hope you'll stick around to see how this tale ends. Tis the season of giving, so drop a comment if you are so inclined :)
> 
> Merry Christmas, and may your lives be blessed with bountiful SoRiku goodness~


	2. Faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas! I hope you can enjoy this next instalment. Just have faith, don't even worry about it, and may your lives be blessed with bountiful SoRiku goodness...

They don’t talk about it next Christmas.

Or rather, Sora didn’t want to talk about it and Riku, as usual, followed Sora’s lead.

Riku had at least seemed open to some sort of discussion when he appeared at midnight, but Sora greeted him with a wide smile and a slightly forced, “Merry Christmas!” and that had sort of set the tone.

Plus the angel quickly became distracted by the unfamiliar surroundings.

“Where is this?” he asked.

“This is Traverse Town!”

“Oh.” A pause. “Why are we here?”

“Cuz my mum and dad decided to treat themselves to a Christmas cruise now that both of their sons are at uni, so I’m spending Christmas here in my dorm.”

Riku looked around the room, his gaze pausing on the small Christmas tree that sat on Sora’s desk. And sat atop the miniature tree, looking much larger as a result, was the little porcelain Christmas angel.

“You took the angel with you,” Riku murmured.

“Well, of course,” Sora said casually, even as he felt his cheeks heating up. “You think I’d have left you without a way to visit? You’d kill me for making you break your word.” _‘And he looks like you, so when I’m feeling lonely, it helps that I can see him whenever I want.’_

Riku huffed that weird little breath of not-quite-laughter. “I see. Thank you.”

“Anyways, let’s get going,” Sora said, shoving his hands into his pockets as he headed towards the door.

“Where are we going?”

“ _Out_ ,” Sora grinned, his eyes glinting. “Life in the city is totally different to how it is on the islands. If we hurry, we can catch a late-night showing of the latest Christmas flick at the cinema. Kairi keeps nagging me to go and see it.”

“Okay,” Riku nodded. “Lead the way.”

Traverse Town was full of distractions, and that night Sora was an expert at finding them all. He and Riku did manage to make the special late-night Christmas showing of the feel-good festive film of the year, and Sora and Riku practically had the whole place to themselves.

“And we only had to pay for one ticket!” Sora laughed, settling into his seat with a large tub of popcorn. Riku looked like he had something to say, but Sora shoved the popcorn into the angel’s face and told him to try some.

Riku did, and then the film started.

After that they went to the arcade, and Sora wondered if Riku knew he was deliberately picking the loudest and flashiest games. He probably did, because towards the end of their stint there his mouth was slightly downturned at the edges.

It was approaching three a.m. and nothing meaningful had really been said. And that was exactly how Sora had wanted it to go.

But then Riku surprised him on the way to Club Chocobo.

Sora had kind of been counting on Riku’s general passivity and willingness to just go with Sora’s flow. So he was thoroughly taken off guard when, just outside the entrance of the club, Riku grabbed onto Sora’s forearm and pulled him close.

“Huh?” Sora blinked, but then Riku’s lips were on his and Sora all but melted.

Part of him wanted to be annoyed, and another part was scared. Everything could have been so easily ignored had Riku not suddenly kissed him like that. But that gentle press of his soft lips felled Sora’s pitiful defences and memories of last year’s heated embrace took over.

Riku pulled away, and Sora was left tongue-tied. He had spent the better part of the year trying to think of what he was supposed to say to Riku when he appeared this Christmas, and had ultimately concluded that it would be easier to just brush over it. But how could he do that now?

“What was that for?” he asked, dazed and flushed.

Riku calmly pointed upwards, and when Sora looked to where he was indicating his face fell. “It’s mistletoe,” Riku said, as neutral as always even when Sora’s heart was conducting back-flips in his chest. “Isn’t kissing under it the rule?”

“Oh, right,” Sora said, disappointment welling up within him. “Of course that’s why you—I should’ve guessed that—right,” he sighed.

“I also did it because I wanted to kiss you.”

Sora’s head snapped up at Riku’s admission and upon closer inspection of the angel’s face, there was definitely a deeper rosiness to his cheeks.

“Y-You did?” Sora asked dumbly.

Riku nodded.

“Oh.”

“Will we be here long?” Riku asked, inclining his head towards the club. “If you want to enter, you should probably do it now. The man in the suit is looking at you strangely.”

Sora turned to look, and perhaps unsurprisingly the Club Chocobo bouncer was looking at him as if he were mad. This probably wasn’t the first time someone had carried out a totally one-sided conversation in front of him, but it likely _was_ the first time that the person in question seemed perfectly sober.

Sora swiftly turned his back to the man. “We don’t have to go in. Was there… was there something you wanted to do?” he asked, and god his hopeful tone sounded really lame. What was he even expecting?

Riku took a minute to devise a response, thinking twice, three times, and then:

“I like these new sights. Traverse Town is interesting. But if it’s okay with you, I would like to return to your room at some point.”

Sora turned to gawk at him, his eyes impossibly wide. “Um, w-wait, are you saying…?”

“…”

Riku seemed reluctant to voice anything further, so Sora had to take other cues instead. Like the way his right hand was nervously opening and closing into a fist by his side, or how his eyes weren’t _quite_ able to meet Sora’s just then. All things considered, this was probably the closest thing to an explicit invitation that his guardian angel was going to give him. Sora would be a fool not to take it.

The instant they were in the privacy of his room Sora’s mouth sought out Riku’s own and he kissed him as deeply as he could while he awkwardly manoeuvred them over to the bed. He was able to kick off his shoes just before they fell into the sheets, and Sora’s breath caught at the way Riku’s hair fanned out across his pillow like a silvery firework.

“I love you,” Sora murmured.

Riku reached up and placed his hand against Sora’s heart. Sora allowed the frenzied beat to drum its way into Riku’s fingertips, and the angel sighed happily. And then his long fingers were hooking under the hem of Sora’s shirt, tugging at it insistently.

Sora got the message and quickly pulled the shirt up and over his head. For a split second he was incredibly grateful for his swim team membership; Riku’s physique was next level, but at least his own was toned and at the peak of physical fitness.

The weight of heated aquamarine taking him in though was almost too much, and Sora could feel how he was flushing all the way to his chest. Riku was incredibly careful with all of his movements as he ran his hands up Sora’s sides, leaving delicate lines of pleasure wherever he touched.

Sora was content to stay like that for a while, letting Riku take his time mapping the contours of his body. There was an underlying tenderness to every brush and stroke of his intimate touch, and Sora closed his eyes against the sweet bubbling up of pleasure that spread across every inch of him until he was breathless.

“Riku,” he gasped, cracking one eye open and squirming atop his angel until the other finally paused his maddening ministrations. Riku was gazing up at him as if he were the most precious thing in all the world and Sora moaned quietly in the back of his throat.

His hands clumsily flew to the button of his pants in a bid to relieve some of the pressure that had built up there. “You too,” he said breathlessly as he began shimmying out of his clothing.

Riku nodded and in the next moment his robe dispersed in thousands of tiny light particles, leaving him laid completely bare before Sora.

“W-Woah,” Sora stuttered, his arousal straining painfully now against the restraints of his underwear. “Nice trick,” he said thickly, his gaze frantically trying to memorise every aspect of the tantalising creature before him, to comprehend Riku in all of his splendour.

Riku moved to sit up and Sora was besotted with the way his muscles shifted under perfect porcelain skin. And then Riku’s hands closed over his own and assisted in ridding Sora of the rest of his clothing until the both of them were completely exposed to each other.

Sora cupped Riku’s face in his hands and kissed him deeply. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, feeling the shiver that ran through Riku’s body at the compliment.

“I am nothing compared to you,” Riku returned, grazing his lips against Sora’s neck. Sora would have found the statement laughable had it not been spoken with utter sincerity. The human believed this to be an absurd belief on Riku’s part, but god did it make his heart swell to know Riku’s opinion on the matter. The angel was being surprisingly open with him this Christmas.

Sora groaned when one of Riku’s hands passed between them and travelled lower, seeking out his arousal. Sora was powerless in the face of Riku’s touch and he bucked helplessly into that perfect hand, his own hands moving to tangle themselves in Riku’s hair.

His resistance when it came to Riku was pathetic. It always had been. He felt his pleasure building at a ludicrous pace as Riku worked over his flesh, and very soon Sora found himself tugging on silver strands as he gasped out a, “Stop.”

Riku stilled immediately and looked up at Sora’s pleasure stained face. “Not like this,” Sora explained, unthreading his fingers from Riku’s hair and gently pushing the other down so that he was once more nestled atop the sheets. Sora throbbed with desire as he carefully ran his fingers up Riku’s own hardened length until Riku was pursing his lips, and then he dared to move those fingers even lower.

Riku parted his thighs at the implied question, the rosy tint to his cheeks darkening a couple of shades. But Sora still felt the need to check that this was okay. Or maybe he just wanted to hear Riku say it.

“Can I?” he asked breathily.

“Yes.”

Never before had that word sounded so sweet.

Sora blindly reached out for his bedside drawer and spent a few agonising seconds searching for the bottle of lube he kept in there. His search would have gone a lot quicker had he been willing to take his eyes off of Riku for a moment, but there was no way he was going to part with this exquisite view unless he absolutely had to.

Sora wasn’t sure if, given that his partner was an angel, he was meant to do it differently from how he would with a human. But absent any direction from Riku other than a small huff of breath that Sora took to mean, ‘Hurry up,’ he squeezed a generous amount of the lube over his fingers before lining one up with Riku’s entrance.

He took his time preparing Riku. He may have been on the cusp of satisfying a long held desire but he wanted Riku to enjoy himself and not be subject to the pain of Sora’s reckless enthusiasm. And so despite his impatience Sora forced himself to wait a little longer as he carefully stretched Riku out.

Sora was honestly proud of the self-control he displayed in those long minutes spent exploring Riku’s heat with his fingers. Riku, however, seemed a lot less impressed with it when he eventually broke his laboured breathing to groan out an impatient, “ _Sora_.”

“R-Right,” Sora nodded, withdrawing his fingers and coating himself with some more of the lube before lining himself up. “You ready?”

Riku shot him a look and Sora chuckled breathlessly. Asking Riku to say it again was definitely pushing his luck. Maybe next year.

With a roll of his hips Sora slid deep into Riku and honestly all of Sora’s dreams paled in comparison to the sheer bliss that consumed him in that moment. He moaned loudly and looked down so that he could clearly see where they were connected. With this, they were one. The powerful tug that had ruled his heart since the moment he met his angel threatened to make it explode with euphoria.

“You feel so good, Riku,” he moaned. “You feel like heav—”

Sora blinked in surprise at the hand that now obstructed his mouth and prevented him from finishing that sentence. He looked to Riku, whose cheeks were flushed prettily even as his eyebrows were furrowed. He didn’t need to ask the question for Riku to answer.

“Don’t say that,” he said in a voice deepened with arousal, “That is _definitely_ blasphemy.”

Sora took Riku’s hand and pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist. “Does it matter?” he grinned roguishly. “Aren’t we sinning right now? I’m definitely going to hell for this, right?”

Sora was mainly kidding, but Riku responded with deadly seriousness as he said, “I would never allow that.”

Another wave of affection crashed over him at Riku’s earnestness. “So I don’t have to face a punishment for tainting you?” he teased.

“Tainting me?” Riku seemed genuinely confused. He brought his arms up and wrapped them around Sora’s neck, pulling him down into a searing kiss. “You bless me, Sora,” Riku murmured against his lips. “You bless me with your love.”

“ _Shit!_ ” Sora’s whole body shook and he buried his face into Riku’s neck.

Riku gasped beneath him. “Sora? Did you just—”

“ _Yes_ ,” he groaned against Riku’s heated skin. Man, this was so embarrassing. “That’s not fair, Riku,” he laughed weakly. “You need to warn me before you say something like that.”

Riku hummed. “Sorry.” He didn’t seem sorry. In fact, when Sora pulled back, Riku was damn near close to smiling. “You’re still hard,” he commented, squeezing around Sora and causing the brunette to moan once again.

“Yeah.” Sora smiled and cupped Riku’s cheek. “I’m going to make love to you properly now.”

Riku melted at that. “Okay.”

Sora may have been weak to every single little thing about Riku, but he made up for this weakness with enthusiasm, youth, and a tenacious virility. They made love until long after dawn had broken. Sora gave everything he had to Riku, and Riku held onto him so sweetly and gasped his name so prettily that Sora somehow managed to fall even deeper in love with him.

When they were well and truly spent, Sora fell asleep in Riku’s comforting embrace. Sora didn’t think that Riku knew what ‘spooning’ meant, but he was happy to be the little spoon when Riku reached for him once they were finished.

Sora drifted off to the lullaby of Riku’s breath in his ear and his warm chest pressed against his back.

And in that moment, Sora truly felt like he knew peace.

x~x~x~x~x

The next two Christmases were blissful affairs. Sora made a point to stay in Traverse Town during the holiday season so that he could show Riku even more of the sights. They strolled hand-in-hand around the extravagant gardens in the Flower & Plant District, admiring how the grounds had been transformed into a winter wonderland for the holiday season.

They checked out an open-air cinema, and afterwards Sora had taken Riku to a sweet little restaurant called Le Grand Bistrot. He knew that Riku didn’t need to eat, but the pastries there were next level. Sora had befriended the owner over the course of the examination period, where he would seek refuge in sugary treats as a distraction from the stress of work. It had gotten to the point where freebies and discounts were liberally given to him, making the food great value as well as sinfully tasty.

Riku’s take on the _Berries au Fromage_ had been a cool, “Oh, this is really tasty.” Which, coming from him, was a rave review.

Ephemer had told Sora earlier in the year that the art museum was actually super interesting, so Sora made sure to take Riku there on Christmas day.

It had been an interesting visit. Sora didn’t really understand what made ‘good’ art, but he was happy to look at the bright colours and be impressed by the great landscape canvases. Riku seemed to have a deeper appreciation for the pieces, making sure to dedicate a respectful amount of time to each painting and sculpture.

But there was one painting in particular that Riku seemed enamoured with. He had stared at it for five minutes without moving a single muscle before Sora, who had wanted to give the angel space, sidled up to him.

“You like this one, huh?” he asked, taking in the bright and bold strokes on the canvas before him. Sora honestly couldn’t hazard a guess at what sort of art style it was, but if he himself had to describe it, he would have said ‘abstract-ish’.

“It’s like looking at an old friend,” Riku replied, his voice impossibly soft. He was looking at the painting with a wistful expression and Sora got the feeling that there was a deeper story here. He looked at the little gold plate that accompanied the piece and detailed its title, artist, and completed date.

**_Connaissance_** **, Naminé Mémoire, 1548**

“Naminé Mémoire,” Sora said, probably butchering the name entirely. “I haven’t heard of her. You like her work?”

Riku huffed his small not-laughter breath. “Something like that. I was her guardian angel.”

Sora’s mouth fell open. “Y-You were… hers, huh?”

He wasn’t really sure how to feel. On the one hand it made sense that Riku, as a guardian angel, had had more than one job in his entire existence. On the other hand, he felt a small stab of petty jealousy knowing that Riku had belonged to someone else.

“I remember watching her paint this,” Riku said, his beautiful eyes tracing each bold stroke. “She put her all into it, drawing from first light and sometimes stubbornly trying to continue in candle light when night fell. Sometimes she’d forget to eat when consumed with a project like this.” He shook his head. “But really, she was one of the easier people I’ve protected. Like I said: I remember watching her paint this. Having lazy days like that were a luxury. Even though I knew that at the time, I don’t know if I really appreciated them.”

Sora listened intently to every word. This was quite possibly the most that Riku had said in one go, and it made Sora realise that he knew very little about Riku’s life. The angel didn’t tend to talk about himself much, but he seemed to be in a sentimental mood right then.

He reached out and squeezed Sora’s hand. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Oh, um, you’re welcome,” Sora said, scratching the back of his neck. It’s not like he had planned it, but Riku seemed happy, so Sora decided to be happy as well.

But it did make him curious about all of Riku’s experiences. When it came to that, he knew so little. But when it came to knowing _Riku_ , to understanding all of his little tells and quirks, Sora was quickly becoming an expert.

And Riku also knew most of his, as well.

That night, after they had shared a frenzied hour of festive passion against a wall because Sora was too impatient to travel the short distance to the bed, they lay curled up in each other’s arms on the floor.

Riku’s eyes were closed in contentment, and Sora was tracing mindless patterns along his bicep. “These other people,” he asked, breaking the comfortable silence in the wake of his burning curiosity, “You know, the other people that you guarded before me…”

Riku hummed to indicate that he was listening.

“W-Well, did you ever… I mean, were you, uh—n-not that there’s anything wrong if you did, but—”

Somehow Riku was able to parse the meaning from this incoherent babbling.

“You ask if I am in the habit of parting my thighs for all of the humans I guard?” Riku asked, and Sora flushed bright red at the phrasing of it.

“Well, when you put it like that…”

Riku opened sated eyes and quirked a near-smile at him. “It’s just you,” he replied, placing a tender kiss to Sora’s forehead. “The humans we guard aren’t supposed to know we are doing so. They go about their lives never knowing of our work. You are the first instance of me revealing myself, and I really shouldn’t have done that.”

“I’m glad you did,” Sora smiled, nuzzling against his neck and feeling more at ease having his question answered so candidly.

“Well, you are exceptional in many ways. I was curious.”

“Curious enough to become a rule-breaker?” Sora chuckled.

“Evidently.”

“You’re always so serious and proper, so I’m honoured.”

“Is that how you see me?” Riku murmured, his tone thoughtful.

“Well, it’s what you show me.”

Riku didn’t have a response for that, but his silence was perhaps more incriminating than any words he may have elected to use. It was clear that there were dimensions to Riku that Sora couldn't even begin to imagine, and the angel was deliberately concealing some and presenting heavily censored versions of others.

It niggled at Sora, just a bit, that he couldn’t be fully certain of Riku’s authenticity. And it hurt to know that this was because his angel either didn’t trust him enough, or else he simply didn’t feel comfortable to do so. He was always so _guarded_ … but what was the surprise there? The clue was in Riku’s job title.

Still, the last thing Sora wanted to do was push Riku too far out of his comfort zone. He knew that he had tested the limits of it pretty hard over the years and was endlessly grateful for Riku’s benevolence when it came to accommodating his human lover.

And so Sora was content to brush his lips against Riku’s own in a loving kiss, and have faith that at some point in the future he would find himself in the privileged position of knowing everything about his beloved.

x~x~x~x~x

By the time their seventeenth Christmas rolled around, Sora had graduated from TTU. Like many recent graduates, Sora wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do with his life. He decided to stick around Traverse Town for a while to see if he could ‘figure himself out’.

In the interim he scored himself a job working for the Traverse Town Post Office, a great labyrinth of a place that Sora still sometimes struggled to navigate even after working there for a few months. Still, there was something therapeutic about sorting through thousands of packages and letters, and it paid well enough that Sora could rent a small flat for himself in one of the outer districts.

He looked forward to Christmas even more than usual that year. He had done his best to make his flat as homely as possible, and he had gone all out on the festive decorations with no one there to rein him in.

He had bought a bigger Christmas tree than the one he had perched on his desk throughout his uni days, and spent hours decorating it until it was more tinsel and baubles than tree. He placed his precious porcelain angel atop it with a flourish and stepped back to admire his handiwork.

Sora stood in front of the tree in anticipation in the final minutes of Christmas Eve. Riku appeared right on time in the instant the second hand ticked across the line to indicate Christmas had begun, and Sora greeted him with a wide grin.

“Merry Christmas, Riku!”

“Merry Christmas, Sora.” Riku raised an eyebrow at Sora’s odd pose. The young man stood with one hand up in the air, and when Riku’s gaze flicked up realisation dawned upon his features. There, dangling from Sora’s fingers, was a sprig of mistletoe.

Riku stepped forward and closed the remaining distance between them before he leant in and pressed his lips against Sora’s. It was a sweet, chaste thing, but when Riku moved to pull away, Sora chased that heavenly mouth with his own.

He swept his tongue along Riku’s bottom lip and when Riku opened up, his own tongue met Sora’s halfway. At some point during their heated make-out session Sora discarded the mistletoe so that he could wrap his arms around Riku’s waist. With their bodies now flush together, Sora took the opportunity to roll his hips and relished the low keening noise Riku made. Sora swallowed it greedily before moving his lips downwards, placing light butterfly kisses along Riku’s jawline.

“You’re excitable,” Riku exhaled.

Sora laughed breathlessly. “I missed you.” He mouthed at Riku’s neck, beginning to suck a mark into it. Riku inhaled sharply.

“I haven’t even seen your new place yet,” he tried to protest, but Sora could feel Riku’s rising arousal when he rolled his hips again.

“Okay, mistletoe greetings are _definitely_ a keeper,” Sora concluded, laughing when Riku tugged on one of his spiky strands as a way to express his disapproval at the sentiment. “Fine fine,” he conceded, reluctantly pulling away.

“You are impossible,” Riku said with a shake of his head, very quickly getting his breathing back under control.

“Sorry,” Sora smiled, cupping Riku’s cheek. “You mad?”

Riku turned his face and pressed a kiss to Sora’s palm, then to the pads of each of his fingers. “No.”

“I love you,” Sora sighed happily. He allowed himself a moment to bask in the tender atmosphere before his excitable puppy tendencies kicked back in. “All right, I gotta give you the grand tour of the place! I’m pretty sure I’ve got this adulting thing figured out,” he grinned.

His flat was small, so really the ‘tour’ only took about a minute. But Sora still made a show of each room, gesturing grandly to the kitchenette and adjoining living area that they currently stood in before moving on to the bathroom and, finally, the bedroom.

“And we can christen the new bed later,” Sora said with a lopsided smile and a waggle of his eyebrows. Riku cringed at his choice of words, but that didn’t stop him from taking Sora in like Holy Communion a few hours later.

He was on his knees before the temple of Sora’s body, his lips worshipping every inch of skin they touched. All Sora could do was surrender to the divine pleasure that licked through his body like holy fire.

Riku’s mouth was salvation. Whether stopping just shy of a smile or speaking in straightforward tones, kissing him under mistletoe or wrapped intimately around him, Riku’s mouth always had been and always would be a wondrous thing to Sora.

The fingers he had tangled into Riku’s hair tugged slightly as he was brought to new heights of bliss. Sora had never been one to hold back from voicing his pleasure and his gasped words of praise escalated until he was spilling into that angelic mouth with a loud moan of Riku’s name.

Riku drank him in like communion wine, taking care to capture every single drop before he pulled away. Riku’s lips were slightly swollen, a fact that seemed to be highlighted by the gentle heavenly glow given off by his skin. Sora found the sight so seductive that he could already feel the stirrings of arousal beginning to simmer again within him.

“You’re amazing,” he praised Riku, who’s swollen lips pulled into a near-smile before Sora couldn’t take it and pulled him up for a kiss. “I’ll make you feel good next,” he murmured.

Riku crawled onto the bed, but just as he was about to turn around and face Sora the other cut in with, “Ah, stay like that for me?”

Riku hesitated for a moment before throwing a dubious look over his shoulder. Sora chuckled and shifted in so that he was behind Riku. “Come on, don’t give me that look,” he gently urged. “Have a little faith.”

“It’s because I have faith that I give you this look.”

Sora couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I liked your mouth better when it wasn’t insulting me,” he teased.

“I never said it was an insult,” Riku immediately shot back, his voice very matter-of-fact.

“So you _weren’t_ insulting me just then?”

Riku considered his answer for a moment before deciding he couldn’t be bothered voicing one. Instead he turned around to face the headboard and adjusted himself to get more comfortable on his hands and knees. Which, Sora supposed, was still an answer.

He ran his hands over the curve of Riku’s arse and glanced over at the lube he had set-aside earlier before looking over Riku. The angel had relaxed into the sheets somewhat and was patiently waiting for Sora to begin his usual gentle preparation. Sora kneaded the smooth cheeks in his hands thoughtfully and decided to see just how much of Riku’s goodwill and faith would be bestowed upon him.

In lieu of reaching for the lube, Sora dipped down and parted Riku’s buttocks. Before his lover had a chance to figure out that Sora was intent on trying something different, Sora leant forward and tasted Riku with his tongue.

Riku jolted and sucked in a sharp breath. “Hey,” he said as if he were about to raise an objection, “Sor- _aahhh_.”

If his mouth weren’t currently occupied with lapping at Riku’s entrance he may have smirked proudly at that. He felt rather than saw the moment where Riku’s arms slightly gave way and he ended up balancing on his elbows instead. Riku’s thighs were lightly shaking, and although the angel was making a valiant attempt to stifle any of his sounds, he still heard choked gasps and muffled moans.

Sora was practically full mast again as he licked his way into Riku and heard his lover’s breaths come in heavy, irregular bursts. It was clear that Riku was enjoying it and anything that Riku took pleasure in was something that Sora automatically found insanely arousing, and so he wrapped one hand around a powerful thigh and pressed in deeper, as deep as he could possibly go.

Riku put an end to his fun when he groaned, rough and seductive, “Sora, _enough_.”

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. Sora was pretty sure that he could get Riku to climax like this, but the thought seemed unpalatable to Riku. His angel wasn’t good at accepting things that focused exclusively on his pleasure. He either wanted the focus to be on Sora or on the both of them, but never just him.

Sora had tried to hold out a few times but Riku never did play fair. And this time, as with all times similar to this, he said, “ _Please_ ,” in this beautifully needy sort of way and Sora wasn’t sure how on earth he was meant to deny Riku anything.

He pulled back and licked his lips, reaching for the lube he had ignored earlier. Riku was peering over his shoulder again and watched as Sora poured the liquid over his fingers. “I’m fine,” he said, “Just cover yourself.”

Sora raised an eyebrow. “You sure?” he asked.

Riku shook his hips for a moment as if to draw attention to his present state that Sora’s enthusiastic mouth had left him in, then sent him a pointed look.

“You sure are eager tonight,” Sora said as he spread lube over his arousal in a couple of quick strokes. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Sora grabbed onto Riku’s hips and lined himself up. Riku finally seemed pacified with the way things were going and stopped craning his neck to look at him. In one smooth motion Sora sheathed himself deep within Riku, his head falling back in pleasure as that marvellous heat enveloped him. He waited a few moments for his lover to adjust, and then he set a languid sort of pace as he thrust with smooth rolls of his hips.

“I love you,” Sora groaned, keeping one hand on Riku’s hip while he ran the other along the small of Riku’s back. In this position Sora had a clear view of where they were connected and he watched, almost hypnotised, as Riku kept taking him in perfectly. This served to reinforce Sora’s belief that Riku was absolutely meant for him; that they were always meant to be.

He maintained his steady pace, wanting a slower build to the pleasure this time. His gaze drew upwards, along the powerful line of Riku’s back, and something registered in Sora’s heated mind: two faint marks. They could have easily been missed, but the luminescence of Riku’s own skin highlighted them.

They sat on the inside of Riku’s shoulder blades and were identical in their length and shape. They weren’t immediately noticeable but it looked as though they had once been burnt into his skin. And then a flash of a memory crossed Sora’s mind, of fiery wings of light that sprouted as if by magic.

Sora was used to seeing Riku without his wings but he supposed, when Riku did feel like using them, this is where they would be. He reached out and carefully ran his fingers over one of the marks, in no way prepared for the resulting sound this pulled from Riku, so loud that it echoed around the room like a heavenly chorus.

Sora paused and looked at Riku with eyes widened in wonder. Riku seemed rather mortified at having made any sort of noise above his self-imposed ‘decibels of neutrality’ and had clapped a shaky hand over his mouth as some sort of countermeasure.

“What was that?” Sora asked, his words coming thick like treacle.

He wasn’t too surprised when Riku didn’t say anything. Instead Sora traced his index finger along the length of one of the marks and watched in fascination as Riku quickly buried his face into the pillow. His long hair splayed out wildly, and Sora could see that the angel’s ears and the back of his neck were flushed deep red.

“Does it feel good?” he asked, voice impossibly husky as he watched the angel slowly coming undone under the gentle pressure of his fingers. Riku’s own fingers were twisting into the sheets underneath him, his voice muffled from where he had elected to bite the pillow as if any words or sounds would be more incriminating than the way his body squeezed around Sora.

Sora increased the power behind his thrusts in the face of this newfound tightness and pressed harder against the marks. Riku’s whole body trembled and pushed back against Sora almost instinctively, seeking out more of his lover’s touch even as he bit harder into the pillow.

“Will you let me hear you?” Sora asked, groaning against the wet heat that sought to take him in even deeper. “Please? I want to hear you. You can always hear me, right? You can hear how good you make me feel. How wonderful you are for me. I love you, Riku. I— _hah_!” Sora’s words were lost to a choked moan as another wave of pleasure crashed through him, but he still couldn’t hear Riku clearly.

“Come on, Riku, let me hear you,” Sora said, thrusting in deep, “Just let go.” He raked his nails over the marks and Riku seemed to do just that. Sora’s aim had only been to tease him, to make him feel so good he forgot about being cautious. But that final drag of his nails along Riku’s back pushed further than he had meant, and Riku’s body went taught underneath him, squeezing him so hard that it practically sucked a climax out of him by force.

He moaned, long and low, as Riku sucked him dry. But even then Riku was still trembling, bursts of intense pleasure racking his body in spasms that seemed as if they would never end.

He wasn’t sure how long this lasted for, his own pleasure-soaked mind not quite sure what had happened after that sudden whiplash of an orgasm. But when the tremors in Riku’s body quietened, Sora could hear his angel muttering something into the (drool-covered, some part of his mind registered) pillow.

“W-What?” he asked hazily, leaning over Riku to try and listen.

_“—s-sancti. Amen. I-In n-nomine Patris, et… et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. A-Amen. In no…nomine…”_

Sora’s eyebrows furrowed. He had no idea what any of that meant and for a worrying moment he was convinced he had broken Riku and he could only communicate in gibberish now. He pulled out and Riku whimpered for a moment before resuming his odd whispered murmurings. Sora settled in beside him, gently carding his fingers through Riku’s hair, and eventually the other turned to peer up at him with glazed over eyes and a sex-flushed face.

Absent any other ideas, he kept running his fingers through Riku’s hair and whispered soothing endearments against his heated skin until Riku seemed to find his equilibrium.

“Hey,” Sora said, his tone gentle and reassuring, “You feeling okay?”

Riku didn’t immediately respond. But then he wrapped his arms around Sora’s waist and said, “Sora.”

“Yes?”

“Sora,” Riku said again, more like he was trying the word out. Then he was quiet again for a few long minutes. And then he said, “Sorry.”

“For what? You have no reason to apologise.” He nuzzled the top of Riku’s head. “The one saying ‘sorry’ should be me. I pushed you too far just now. I’m sorry, Riku.”

“You don’t have to apologise.”

“I want to anyway.”

“Then I forgive you.”

Riku was always quick to forgive Sora. In the past he had taken this forgiveness for granted, but he had promised to be better. “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.

Sora sensed that there was, but clearly Riku had regained enough of himself now to start over-thinking things again. “Don’t think twice,” he gently urged. “What is it?”

It took another few moments, but finally Riku said, “I want to hold you like I usually do.”

Sora smiled and his heart swelled with affection. The request may have been simple, but it was certainly sincere. “Sure thing.”

They rearranged themselves so that Sora’s back was to Riku, and Riku’s strong arms hugged him from behind. Sora could feel the angel’s heartbeat as he pressed a soft kiss to the back of Sora’s neck. “Thank you,” Riku murmured, and if Sora didn’t know that angels didn’t need sleep he could have believed that Riku was about to fall asleep right then.

“So,” Sora murmured, placing one of his hands over Riku’s, “What language was that just now?”

He heard Riku pause for breath. Then, “Latin.”

“Latin, huh?” A dopey smile spread across his lips. “So… I was so mind-blowingly good that you forgot how to English?”

Riku lightly nipped at the back of his neck and Sora chuckled sleepily. “Okay okay, I’m sorry.”

“You cheated,” Riku said. And even though Sora had never seen Riku pout, it definitely sounded like he was doing just that.

“So is Latin like… your native language?” he asked.

“It’s one of them.”

Sora hummed, and he definitely wanted to continue the conversation, but he was human and humans needed sleep. Soon he was drifting off in the arms of his most precious person.

“I love you,” he mumbled, and made a mental note to ask Riku more about himself in the morning.

And then he was asleep.

x~x~x~x~x

The following year wasn’t… well it wasn’t the most productive. Sora got a bit too comfortable with the way things were and didn’t realise that he was slowly becoming fed up with it all. His job at the Post Office was only supposed to be an interim thing while he pursued his true passion, but he wasn’t really sure what his true passion _was_. Before he realised it, he had already been there a year and had even been promoted.

The promotion was nice, and the people he worked with were fine, but… he was just a little dissatisfied. Just a little.

But in the main, everything was okay. He still had his friends. He still got great meal deals at Le Grand Bistrot. Sure, the commute from his little flat in the Eleventh District to the Post Office in the First District seemed to get a bit more tiring each day, but that was nothing a couple of podcasts couldn’t fix.

He told Riku about some of the more interesting ones when Christmas rolled around. He was waiting for him at midnight with a sprig of mistletoe in hand, and he _swore_ Riku came the closest he ever had to laughing when he clocked it.

“Is this going to become a new tradition?” Riku asked as he pulled back, grabbing at the mistletoe and turning it over in his hands.

Sora grinned widely and replied, “Hey, when it works so well it would be blasphemy _not_ to make it a tradition!”

Riku responded very earnestly, eyebrows furrowed and everything, when he said, “That isn’t what blasphemy is.”

And Sora had laughed, light and airy like the bells on Santa’s sleigh, as he stole back the mistletoe and wiggled it around in the air between them until Riku caved and indulged him with another sweet kiss.

They had their usual Christmas catch-up, in which Sora detailed any key events that came to mind, but it was shorter than in previous years. Not much had happened. Not much had changed. At several points in the (mainly one-sided) conversation he found himself at a loss for words, a relatively alien feeling to a young man who was usually so self-assured.

Instead he tried finding out more about Riku, but the angel was some sort of master when it came to deflection. Soon the conversation was back to focusing on Sora and Sora never quite understood how that happened.

It dawned on Sora that what personal information he _did_ have on Riku tended to be unearthed by complete accident. It was coincidence that he had come across a painting by Naminé Mémoire. It was simple curiosity over the marks on Riku’s back that led to last year’s sexy discovery. When very little was actually being volunteered freely, Sora couldn’t help but doubt.

Hell, he didn’t even know what guardian angels _did_. What was Riku’s day-to-day like? Were guardian angels just meant to be agreeable all of the time? And if that was the case, to what extent did Riku actually want to do this? _Any_ of this? The Christmas visits, the conversations, the day trips, the sex… it didn’t matter how many times Sora asked for the truth, Riku always tended to do what Sora wanted to do and that wasn’t always a good thing.

But it was Christmas. Christmas was a time to laugh and drink and be merry, a time to spend with loved ones and not dwell on the heavy stuff.

So Sora didn’t.

When they were holding hands and watching carollers expertly sing their way through the big festive hits, Sora didn’t wonder whether Riku was truly content to be holding his hand right then.

When they bought some mulled wine from a small Christmas stall, Sora didn't worry about whether Riku was choking down the liquid for Sora’s own benefit.

When they kissed under the mistletoe, Sora wasn’t concerned with whether Riku was just acting in accordance with the rule that came attached to the plant.

And when they made love, Sora wasn’t at all distracted as he contemplated whether this was something Riku honestly, truly _wanted_.

It was Christmas, and getting bogged down in negativity simply wasn’t allowed.

That’s what the rest of the year was for.

x~x~x~x~x

Change.

Sora’s New Year’s resolution that year was to make some changes.

Firstly, he quit his job at the Post Office. He had nothing else lined up but he was feeling spontaneous at the time and besides, didn’t things just have a habit of working out? Getting rid of the safety net of the job he wasn’t even enjoying that much any more would simply force him into action. It was bold! It was daring!

Two months later when munny was becoming increasingly tight, Sora also realised that it was stupid.

He changed his hair up for a bit by trading in his long dramatic spikes for a look that was still spiky but a little more contained. He wasn’t really sure how he felt about this but it made him look slightly different and he was trying to _be_ different, so he forked over more munny than the hairdresser had any right to charge and wilfully ignored his bank balance.

After many increasingly stressful nights trawling job forums, Sora ended up in yet another interim job. Any ‘serious’ jobs he applied for kept rejecting him and Sora couldn’t be too upset about this because none of them were particularly what he was interested in. So he ended up working as a waiter in Le Grand Bistrot after begging the owner for a job.

The pay wasn’t the best but the job wasn’t soul destroying or anything. Sora became great friends with the cook there, a mousy looking man who went by ‘Little Chef’ but refused to disclose to him _why_ people called him that (he was distinctly average in height, so it couldn’t have been based around that).

Despite the job change, his commute didn’t change. Podcasts had their limits at making it more bearable and so Sora looked into changing his flat and getting a nicer one closer to the city centre.

But the aforementioned lack of munny made that change increasingly unattainable. Which really sucked because in October he wasn’t really given a choice about a flat change. His landlord wrote to inform him that he was selling the building his flat was in to some hotel group who were planning on levelling the place and erecting a luxury hotel on the premises instead. This left Sora with just under two months to find a new place before he was left effectively homeless.

He went out to a bar that night and got pissed. It was nearly Halloween and in his intoxicated state Sora thought about how fitting all the macabre décor was.

His parents were always there for him, of course. They said that he was more than welcome to move back in with them until he found his feet again. As if Sora had found his feet before. But Sora couldn’t just take off from work during the insanely busy festive period, and that is how he ended up temporarily living above Le Grand Bistrot in a small studio flat.

The place was sparsely decorated and it wasn’t really _his_ ; he was just relying on the owner’s good will. And while he really liked Mr McDuck, the entrepreneur was spinning so many different plates that Sora couldn’t be certain that the old man would be thrilled having him stay there when he left Traverse Town to oversee his other ventures.

Plus the place simply didn’t feel like home.

Sora increasingly wondered what it was all for. Why did he bother getting a degree if he wasn’t going to put it to good use? Why didn’t he know what his calling was yet? Most of his friends seemed to have it figured out. Roxas had landed himself a cushy graduate scheme straight out of university. So why was he struggling so much?

Still, he had been able to box up the Christmas tree from his old flat and set it up in his new one. It wasn’t the biggest tree by any means but neither was the studio flat, and the tree took up more space than it ought to. Sora found it annoying.

Sora had been working Christmas Eve and his cheeks hurt from smiling so much at all of the patrons and wishing them all a Merry Christmas. By the time midnight was approaching, Sora was running dangerously low on holiday cheer.

But he still put the porcelain angel out. There wasn’t much space in his current residence but he placed the angel atop the sparsely decorated tree and waited.

When Riku appeared, Sora’s head was in his hands. He had been wondering how it had all come to this and completely missed the instant that Christmas Eve flipped into Christmas Day.

“Merry Christmas, Sora,” Riku greeted, and Sora looked up in surprise as if he hadn’t expected him to be there.

“Oh. Yeah,” he said curtly.

Riku didn’t seem too deterred by his demeanour and instead raised an eyebrow. “No mistletoe this year?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Sora clicked his tongue. “‘Okay’?” he repeated. “You’ll accept it, just like that?”

Riku paused for a moment, and Sora saw him thinking through his answer. _Always fucking thinking it through_.

“Yes,” was the answer Riku had spent all that time concocting.

Sora’s eyebrow twitched and he stared Riku down. “Don’t you want to know why?”

More goddamn _thinking_. “If you don’t want there to be mistletoe then there shouldn’t be,” Riku said, voice so fucking diplomatic that Sora actually found it offensive.

“That wasn’t what I asked!” he said, raising his voice more than he meant to. He didn’t mean to, but it’s just when Riku was this perfect neutral creature all the time and was so _obsessed_ with policing his own speech, Sora’s blood began to boil. “Stop thinking and answer me! Don’t you want to know why?”

Riku hesitated before he said, “Yes. Why? Please tell me.”

“The problem is that I don’t know if that answer you just gave me is your own opinion or what you think _I_ wanted you to say or what you think the ‘correct’ fucking answer is!”

Riku shrank back slightly in the face of this vitriol, and part of Sora couldn’t help but think about how familiar this all seemed.

Familiar, and yet different in some pretty fundamental ways.

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is I don’t know if you kiss me because you actually want to or because some stupid plant is telling you to do it! I don’t know if when you say, ‘But I want this’ that you’re actually telling me the truth or just going along with my whims like you always have! I know fucking _nothing_ about you, Riku! You never tell me anything, not really, and never explicitly. You just _imply_ things that can be taken multiple ways and just let me read it however I want. You’re so _guarded_ all of the fucking time!”

“Sora,” Riku said calmly, and Sora saw red. “Let’s just calm down and—”

“ _Stop using that goddamn tone!_ ”

Riku cringed at his choice of words.

“I’m sick of it. Even now you’re guarded! But that’s what you do, right? Guard?” Sora snorted. “Guardian angel… what the hell do you even _do_? Guarding is so passive. Guarding is just a- just a reaction to something. Have you ever done anything pro-active ever? Or do you just stand there all perfect and deflect anything that life throws at you?”

“Hey now—”

“You said you’d protect me, right? Well some job you’re doing!” Sora couldn’t stop now. He hadn’t realised there was this much. He wanted to stop, but he also didn’t. These were words that needed to be said and they spewed freely from his lips from a deep place that he had spent so long ignoring. But now everything was coming out. Even shit that Riku wasn’t responsible for was being pinned on him and Sora rode the adrenaline rush as he continued.

“I’m twenty-four years old and my life is a fucking dumpster-fire! I live on top of a restaurant because my old place that I didn’t even like has now been bulldozed to the ground, I’m broke as hell, and my life has just descended into this miserable fucking existence and what have you even been doing this whole time?! Is this your idea of care and looking out for me?”

“My job isn’t to live your life,” Riku said, still trying to be reasonable. “Your successes and your mistakes are yours to make.”

“God what is _with_ you?! Even now you’re cool as anything. Why aren’t you shouting? You’re hurt, right? Aren’t I hurting you?”

“…”

“ _Stop fucking thinking_! C’mon, shout at me! Or cry! Or just- just _anything_ that isn’t some heaven-approved neutrality!”

“Sora, I—”

“Do you even love me?”

Riku froze. And then he looked at Sora in astonishment. “I’m sorry?”

“Did I stutter?” Sora sneered. “I asked if you even love me. You’ve never once said it. You’ve never spoken those words to me.”

Riku looked a little guilty at that and Sora crossed his arms in triumph. “Yeah, don’t think that I didn’t notice that. I say it all the time, and you haven’t said it once. You rarely, if ever, speak your mind when you’re around me. You don’t let me hear you when we have sex—holy shit, do you even _like_ having sex with me? H-Have I just been- just been f-forcing myself on you this whole time and you’re just too fucking polite to say anything? Or maybe you’re too neutral to even care at all?”

“Stop it.”

“But why? I don’t have a damn clue about anything. The only thing you’re good for is listening.”

Riku moved then. So fast that Sora didn’t even have time to register it had happened before Riku was gripping his shoulders tightly. His mask of neutrality had cracked but underneath there was chaos. Riku’s expression kept flitting through ghosts of various emotions and his lips were struggling to formulate an answer that could diffuse the situation.

Sora wasn’t sure there was one at this point.

“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Sora said coldly, shoving Riku off of him and attempting to walk away.

“Don’t go.” The words were so quiet that Sora almost didn’t hear Riku say them. Even when they registered he didn’t stop, but then Riku was grabbing his arm and spinning him around forcefully. “I said stop.”

“Why? So you can come up with more ways to tell me absolutely nothing at all? So you can keep hiding from me? I’m sick of it, Riku! This is a fucking joke! No… I’m the joke. I’m the one who keeps thinking that there’s something of fucking substance here when really there’s nothing, and I can see that now!” He jerked backwards, putting all of his bodyweight into freeing himself from Riku’s hold.

He was successful but he ended up stumbling back. The Christmas tree caught his fall and Sora was blind to the way it precariously unbalanced, too consumed by anger to really be aware of anything else.

“And another thing—” he began, ready to lay into Riku all over again. But then he saw something. On the periphery of his vision, Sora saw something falling.

What happened next felt like it occurred in slow motion.

Sora turned to look at whatever it was that had been knocked off, and the first thing his brain registered was the streak of silver hair that made it look as though a delicate shooting star was falling towards the ground. Porcelain glinted dangerously in the lights. And at the last second Sora whirled around to look at Riku, who was watching the scene unfold with widened eyes. Riku opened his mouth to say something, but before any sound could escape his lips there was an earth-shattering _smash_.

Porcelain shattered all over the hard floor, gemstone eyes bounced then rolled to dark corners of the room…

And then Riku burst into millions of tiny light particles that shimmered for a millisecond before disappearing completely, as if the angel had never been there.

Sora just stood there for a while, shocked by the silence.

And then an exhale of nervous laughter escaped him. This… this was a joke, right? It had to be a joke. There was no way that the only thing that allowed Riku to defy the boundaries of his own world for a day had just been obliterated against the floor. It was just some elaborate and unfunny joke. So unfunny that Sora was laughing harder, laughing so loud that the hollow sound was echoing off the walls and still he kept laughing in a fit of hysterics because _this was all just a joke_.

He didn’t know when the laughter turned to sobs. Or maybe it didn’t. There were tears in his eyes, but that could have just been from the laughter and not from the gaping hole he felt opening up in his heart as he surveyed the little bits of porcelain strewn all over the place. This was so much worse compared to what had happened back when he was a kid and the angel lost an arm. This time he was in absolute _pieces_. A bit of super glue and a make-shift tissue paper sling weren’t going to do anything.

Eventually the tears stopped. And so did the laughter. Or the sobs. Sora still wasn’t sure which it was. But he fell to his knees as a heavy sort of despair set into his bones.

He was quiet again.

He looked at the unrecognisable parts of his beloved Christmas angel.

And then he screamed until his throat was raw.

If the heavens heard him, they didn’t answer.


	3. Temperance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the ridiculous wait. Trust me when I say I have cherished each and every review and kudos. I shall not leave you unsatisfied! So let's get right on into it.

Sora’s heart broke when the angel smashed.

Sometimes he’d look back on it and wonder if it shattered at the same time the angel did, and into even more pieces. But the shock numbed him against it for a time and when his brain registered how much his throat hurt from all the screaming, adrenaline kicked in.

In the face of this utterly hopeless situation, Sora somehow found the strength hidden between the cracks of his heart to stand up and be moved to action. He placed the shoebox that the angel was usually stored in atop a table, and then he quickly sought out a dustpan and brush from the cupboard under the sink. And then he set about sweeping up all the disparate pieces, scouring every inch of the floor and haphazardly setting his furniture over to one side.

He found one aquamarine gem stuck between the floorboards and was able to prize it out with help from a kitchen knife. He found the other tucked into the farthest corner of the room, hidden in shadow.

After sweeping up the immediately obvious pieces Sora then went over the room by hand, gathering up any smaller pieces that may have been missed. He searched until the sun had risen and still he didn’t stop, sleep kept at bay by the desperation of making sure he had every porcelain shard, every silver strand of hair.

His hands were pretty cut up at the end of it, both from particularly sharp bits of porcelain but also from the slightly splintering wood of the floor. But he didn’t tend to his wounds. Instead, after he had gone over the room too many times to count and making sure that there was nothing else to gather, he ran outside in search of a place that would sell superglue on Christmas day.

Sora wasn’t really thinking about the practicalities of using superglue to put a mountain of tiny broken china pieces back together. At that moment he needed to feel like he was doing something, anything, or else he might lose whatever delicate thread of sanity was keeping him moving right now.

Not like this. It couldn’t end like this. His last words to Riku couldn’t be an insult. Their last conversation couldn’t be a wholly one-sided argument. He needed to make sure Riku had a way back to him. He wouldn’t blame Riku for not taking it, especially after how Sora had just treated him, but he needed to make sure Riku at least had the _option_.

And then Sora would be repentant, and Riku would forgive him, because Riku _always_ forgave him, a-and then things would go back to the way they were before and they would be happy, right? Because they _were_ happy… right? All of Sora’s grievances and doubts paled into insignificance in the face of never being able to see Riku again.

Fuck, what had he even been so angry about? Did it even matter? What he wouldn’t give to be able to take it all back. If only he hadn’t lost his temper. If only he didn’t feel so insecure. If only he hadn’t jerked back so suddenly, then he never would have knocked the tree.

If only… if only… if only, if only, if only if only if only ifonlyifonlyif _onlyifonlyifonly **ifonly**_.

Unlike Destiny Islands, Traverse Town _did_ get cold at Christmas and, even if it wasn’t prone to snow, frost was certainly to be expected during the winter months. But Sora didn’t feel the cold as he ran out of his flat, his feet bare, his clothing light. Even when his toes and fingers were numbed by the cold he didn’t feel it, probably because he had felt numb for hours by this point.

He did find superglue in the end. He couldn’t really remember how he acquired it, but he did. And then he was back in his flat and looking at the pitiful contents in the shoebox, superglue held uselessly in one hand, and suddenly the enormity of the task ahead hit him and he was crying again.

He hunched over the box and choked out apologies over and over again until the word ‘sorry’ felt meaningless.

He tried to make a start, but he didn’t know where _to_ start. For hours he sifted through the pieces and tried to see if anything would fit together but it was hard to see when his vision was so watery, fat tears obscuring his vision to the point of near-blindness. And even if he could see, his hands were shaking so hard that it would be impossible to make any meaningful progress. Finesse and a calm hand were two key things that Sora simply lacked that Christmas.

As midnight eventually claimed the twenty-fifth and the twenty-sixth began, the angel was still in pieces.

The bottle of superglue fell to the floor with a dull thud, dropped by a shaking, useless hand.

And Sora was alone.

x~x~x~x~x

Living was a painful thing. Every breath Sora took stabbed at his heart. Every step felt like he was treading on broken glass. No, not broken glass. Shattered porcelain.

Riku’s words echoed in the vacant space that his mind had become:

_“You should live for every day, not just live for Christmas.”_

But Sora couldn’t even live for Christmas now. He had no day to live for. If he couldn’t see Riku, then what was the point? Actually, there _was_ a way to join Riku…

All Sora had to do was cross the boundary. It would be a simple thing to accomplish. One little act and he could cross over without issue. A one-way ticket that would let him cross the line that kept him apart from the one he loved.

But Sora was at least aware that this was a very dangerous way to be thinking. And he didn’t think that Riku would appreciate him turning up in such a manner, having used such a method.

Riku had also said something else:

_“This is your life, Sora. I’m working hard to guard it, so I would like you to enjoy it.”_

Enjoyment seemed like an impossibility at this point, but Riku was surely watching over him even if he had no way of physically getting over to him now. Sora had to believe in that. Sora had to believe in Riku.

_“Even if you cannot see me, know that I am always with you. I’ll be right here.”_

And when Sora really concentrated and made a concerted effort to break free from the chains of depression that dragged him further into a darkness where surely no light could follow, he could feel it. He could feel the tug on his heart. He could feel warmth buried under the numbness. He could sense a light, even in the deepest darkness.

_“All you have to do is keep being you, and I’ll take care of the rest.”_

It would be offensiveness of the highest order to give up when Riku was working so hard to protect him. And so Sora took it day by day. It seemed laughable that during their last moments together Sora had accused Riku of never telling him anything of worth. Right now it was Riku’s words that got him through the day.

Riku’s words were what made breathing come a little easier. Riku’s words were what kept him moving forward, even if his progress was slow, even if it hurt, he still kept going until it wasn’t quite as difficult anymore.

Riku was physically gone from this world, but he was still able to be Sora’s guiding light and protector. Even if the thing Riku was protecting Sora from right now was Sora himself. Riku was amazing like that.

Sora didn’t go home. If he showed up looking as pathetic as he felt his parents would surely be worried sick. He couldn’t bear that. But he also couldn’t bear staying in the place where the Christmas angel had met his untimely demise. The memory of it was too painful.

Sora was depressed and broke but he still had friends that loved and supported him. In the dark weeks following Christmas, his friends gave him the power to keep going.

He ended up crashing with Ephemer and Skuld. The two of them hadn’t left Traverse Town after graduating. They had found a comfortable life for themselves in this city. They had also found each other. They got together towards the end of first year and Ephemer proposed the day after graduation.

Living with a happily engaged couple wasn’t as dreadful as Sora had feared. In fact when he had first showed up on their doorstep with heavy bags under his eyes, a pale face, and hair spikes that sagged under their own weight, they had practically adopted him into their home.

Sora was aware that this new arrangement was only temporary. He couldn’t actually live on their couch forever. But they settled into a neat little routine after the initial days of them worrying over him, and now Sora would do the dishes and help around the house where he could.

Both Ephemer and Skuld had asked him, both together and separately, what had happened to send Sora into such a downward spiral. Sora always evaded the question and they didn’t ask anymore, although one night he heard them privately talking about it and Skuld, ever the perceptive woman, wondered whether it had “something to do with that hot foreign boyfriend of his”.

Sora didn’t sleep much that night, the memory of his final moments with Riku playing on a maddening loop until he was curling in on himself. It always was harder at night. Everything was still so raw and the night didn’t have as many distractions as the day.

One such distraction was Skuld’s wedding planner book. She and Ephemer had been engaged for a couple of years now but still hadn’t fixed a date because they wanted everything to be _perfect_ , and apparently ‘perfect’ was currently far beyond their budget. Sometimes Skuld would drape herself across the sofa and peruse the book with a furrowed brow, complaining about the cost of everything. Sora joined her on occasion, flipping through the glossy pages of exotic seafront wedding venues and extravagant cakes. They didn’t want to tie the knot in a church, but rather do so in some sort of private oasis that would transport them and their wedding guests to a romantic faraway land.

Or at least, that’s the impression he got from the pages. And that was the general idea of Skuld’s vision that she had relayed to him that one time the both of them got tipsy on rosé while watching _Say Yes to the Dress_.

Sora was currently flipping through the pages of the wedding planning book again. He had the late shift at Le Grand Bistrot and both Skuld and Ephemer had left for their respective jobs, meaning Sora was on his own and looking for a distraction.

He hadn’t realised just how much of a distraction the book was until part of his brain registered that he’d started making notes, scribbling them messily on the side of some of the pages. And then before he knew it, he was reaching for his gummiphone and making calls.

When the couple returned home they were greeted by a rather frantic Sora, who had laid out all manner of things on their coffee table.

“You guys! You’re back!” he said, far more energetic than he had been since he’d started living with them.

“Sora? What’s going on?” Ephemer asked.

“Are you feeling okay?” Skuld asked, biting her lip.

“I feel great! I was looking at your wedding planner and I think I have it all figured out!”

Ephemer and Skuld shot each other a concerned look before their attention was drawn back to Sora.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, but got all _what_ figured out?”

“Your wedding!”

“Huh?”

“So I was looking through the book and it dawned on me that the sort of place you wanna get hitched looks kinda like Destiny Islands.”

“Destiny Islands?” Ephemer asked. “You mean, your home town?”

“Yeah, exactly! It didn’t occur to me before because, well, I grew up there. To me it’s just normal. But when I gave it some thought, I realised that it really is some far removed slice of paradise. It’s not that hard to get to, and certainly not as expensive as some of these other places listed here. I don’t really know why the islands haven’t tried to work the tourism angle more, but I guess that just makes it more of a hidden gem, right?”

“Um, even if that were true, I haven’t even seen—”

“I’m one step ahead, Skuld! Check it out.” He gestured to several pictures on the coffee table, depicting beautifully golden beaches and a crystal blue sea.

“Wait… _these_ are the Destiny Islands?” she gasped, picking one of the photos up and studying it intently.

“Yeah! And these aren’t even professional photos; these are just some casual shots I took on my phone.”

“N-No way…”

“So anyway, I made a few calls. There’s an inn on the mainland that can be totally booked out as long as you give them enough notice. As for where you hold the ceremony, you can pick any of the islands. They can all be reached really easily by rowboat. There’s this one called the play island that I think would be perfect, but obviously you’d need to see it for yourself.”

Skuld was kneeling on the floor at this point, looking at all of Sora’s notes and photos. She was too engrossed to say anything, so Ephemer chuckled good-naturedly and scratched the back of his neck.

“Okay, but even if this is a dream location well within our budget, that still doesn’t make everything else any cheaper.”

“You mean like the cake and catering and stuff? Well you see, I called Little Chef earlier. I asked him if he’d ever made a wedding cake before, or if he’d be open to the general idea. When I told him why I was asking, he seemed really willing to help out!”

“Wait, Little Chef as in that crazy good cook at Le Grand Bistrot?” Ephemer asked, having also been there on multiple occasions. He was weak for the Sea Bass Poêlé.

“The very same!” Sora grinned, and Ephemer honestly felt choked up at the sight of it. It had been too long since he’d seen that grin. “I’m gonna talk to Mr McDuck about it when I go there tonight for my shift. He hasn’t thought about working the catering market before but I think I can convince him around. I just gotta hope he likes me enough to give you guys a discount,” he laughed.

“This is… this is amazing,” Skuld murmured. “Sora… you’re _really_ good at this.”

“Huh? O-Oh, no, it was no big deal. I kinda just… ended up wondering a lot of stuff so contacted some people out of curiosity…”

“You’ve done more in one afternoon than we’ve managed to do in years!”

“Well I mean I was using _your_ vision—”

“Stop being so modest! Sora, you’ve always been good at making connections. And right now this is proof of that; look how in a few calls you’ve put together all of this!” She suddenly gasped, her eyes going wide as she fixed her fiancée with an intense stare.

“Excuse us for a moment,” she said to Sora, standing up and neatly dragging Ephemer out of the room.

Sora furrowed his eyebrows, unable to make out what the couple were excitedly discussing in hushed tones on the other side of the door. About a minute later they burst through the door and grinned widely at him.

“Ahem, Sora,” Ephemer said, clearing his throat dramatically, “We have a proposal for you.”

Skuld swept across the room until she was in front of Sora. She grabbed his hands and looked him dead in the eyes. “Sora, would you plan our wedding?”

Sora’s eyes widened in surprise. “W-Wait… you mean like plan the whole thing? Me?”

“Yes you,” Ephemer chipped in, going over and clapping Sora on the back. “Skuld is right; you’re actually great at this. Plus it’s a relief to see you like this. It’s almost like you’re back to your old self again.”

Sora gasped. His old self… it was true. Today was the first day in a long time where he didn’t feel like he was wading through a sea of treacle. He had gotten so carried away in the details of wedding planning and had even had _fun_ doing it.

Fun…

Sora placed a hand over his heart. It didn’t ache as much any more. Something had happened that afternoon that steeled him against the misery that had come to characterise his existence recently. That something wasn’t just fun, it was something that ran deeper.

A purpose.

Could this be it? Was this the thing he was good at? The thing he wanted to do?

But did he even have the right to do it? Who was he, to come along and plan the biggest day in a couples’ life together when he had so spectacularly smashed his own relationship to pieces?

Sora looked from Ephemer to Skuld, the both of them looking at him hopefully. Encouraging him to move forward. Trusting him to make their wedding day as special as it could be. It was a heavy responsibility, but he was honoured to have them put their faith in him like this.

Sora wondered if this is what redemption felt like.

“You guys…” he murmured, choking up.

“Woah woah, don’t cry!” Ephemer said. “We’ll totally pay you and everything!”

“That's not why I’m crying, silly,” Sora laughed through his tears, putting his arms around the both of them. “I’ll do it! I’m not sure how this is gonna turn out, but I’ll do my best for you two. So count on me, okay?”

“Of course!”

“We believe in you!”

And Sora held them a little tighter at that. Belief… he had paid the ultimate price by not believing in the one who mattered most.

He was never going to make that mistake again.

x~x~x~x~x

As it turned out, Sora was something of a natural when it came to wedding planning. At its core the job was about building and maintaining a network of relationships and that was something that Sora did without even thinking about it too hard. So when he actually applied himself to the task the results were pretty spectacular.

Mr McDuck went one better than merely agreeing to Le Grand Bistrot catering for a wedding. He pulled Sora aside one night and began monologuing about all of the adventures he had when he was but a young lad and why he had such an entrepreneurial spirit. A lot of whisky had flowed that night so when the old man put his arm around Sora and said that he reminded him of himself and was therefore planning on investing in his fledgling wedding planning business, Sora thought he had drunkenly made it up.

For starters, there was no intention of turning it into an independent business; this was just something he was doing for his friends. Secondly, opportunities like this didn’t just happen so easily.

But when he showed up to his shift the next day and Mr McDuck already had a load of papers ready and waiting to be signed, Sora realised that he really had somehow managed to secure an investment and that clearly there was something viable in the whole thing.

A lot happened that year. Ephemer introduced Sora to a computer engineering friend of his called Brain, who set up a killer website for Sora at a very agreeable discount. He also helped him set up a dedicated business Kingstagram and gave him tips on how to maximise its potential.

Sora finally got up the nerve to move out and live on his own once more, finding a modest flat for himself in the Seventh District.

As a result of bringing a wedding to Destiny Islands, Sora became something of a local celebrity in his homeland.

“This will really put us on the map!” one enthusiastic islander had said.

“Let’s show those city folk how we do it over here!” said another.

And the innkeeper, who just so happened to be an old family friend, was so thrilled at the prospect of having a full house that they dropped the room rates without Sora even needing to attempt a negotiation.

Roxas introduced him to a friend he had made at university, a young man called Pence who was determined to kick-start his career as a photographer. After checking out his portfolio Sora decided that the two of them could help each other out moving forward, and Pence was thrilled to have booked his first serious photography gig.

The date of Ephemer and Skuld’s wedding was the thirteenth of July, and Sora hardly had a spare moment in the months leading up to it. There was a lot to learn and a lot to perfect. At night when his head hit the pillow he usually fell asleep instantly, and if he dreamed it was about how to tell the difference between roses, camellias, and tuberous begonias.

He’d even managed to pick up a couple more jobs. Nothing too high profile, but his new semi-celebrity status on the islands meant that two sets of islander couples ended up requesting his services when it came to planning their own weddings. It was a stunning display of faith, especially since he hadn’t actually run a successful wedding yet, but he graciously accepted and found his busy days simply getting busier as he strove to make their respective visions come true.

There was no time for thinking unless the thoughts were to do with how he was going to get a float full of lavender into a church, or how he was going to pacify the overbearing mother of the bride who was _insisting_ on wearing white to her daughter’s own wedding because she disapproved of the match.

Even on the actual day of Ephemer and Skuld’s wedding Sora was busy fussing about with the altar that had been set up on the beach, making sure that every inch of it was covered in dandelions. Sora still wasn’t sure _why_ that had been Ephemer and Skuld’s choice of wedding flower, but Sora had managed to befriend a lovely flower seller called Aerith and together they had managed to weave dandelions into practically every aspect of the wedding.

The only time Sora was able to just pause for a moment was when Skuld walked down the aisle. The modest orchestra was playing beautifully and Skuld was an absolute vision of radiance as she and her father walked down the aisle, bouquet of dandelions in hand. Kairi, who had been selected to be one of the bridesmaids, was already crying and they hadn’t even started the vows yet.

And really, it was the vows that got to Sora more than he thought they would. He had been so focused on getting everything perfect for his friends and now it was all culminating in this one moment. As he watched them exchange their vows of love, he found himself shedding tears of his own.

For the first time in hectic months he was able to dwell on thoughts of Riku, and how he had lost any opportunity to voice his love to the angel face-to-face. Sora had taken great strides since that fateful Christmas. He’d practically rebuilt himself. He had a _business_ now. With help from his friends he was standing tall.

But in this world without Riku, he couldn’t help but dream of him. Especially now, watching Ephemer and Skuld swearing an oath to each other on the very same shore that Sora had first confessed to Riku all those years ago.

The gravity of the moment overtook him and Sora had to do everything within his power to keep it together as best as he could, to make sure the rest of the wedding proceeded smoothly. He couldn’t really remember much of it though. He went through the motions, smiled on cue, and performed his duties perfectly, but his heart wasn’t in it. His heart was elsewhere; cast over a boundary his body couldn’t go.

After everyone settled in for the night after a joyous evening filled with exquisite food from Little Chef and a surprisingly amazing DJ set from Demyx, who had literally gotten on his knees and begged Sora and Ephemer to trust him to provide music for the wedding when he got his invite, Sora sneaked out of his room and took a rowboat back over to the play island.

Everything from the ceremony had since been cleared away and so he sat cross-legged on the patch of sand closest to the sea and looked up at the night sky. The stars were as gorgeous as they always were, and yet Riku had always shone much more brilliantly than all of them.

Sora’s fingers twitched on reflex, remembering all the times he had reached out in moments like this and linked his fingers together with Riku’s. This time sand was the only thing that passed between the empty space between his fingers.

He didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much that he _could_ say.

But he hoped that wherever Riku was, he was also looking up at this sky right now.

x~x~x~x~x

Despite being buoyed by the early successes of his fledgling business, Sora found that days started to become a little more difficult during the latter months of the year. Almost as soon as Sora had finished celebrating Halloween with his friends, he began deteriorating.

At first it was him showing up late for the odd appointment or dropping the ball on really simple things. But as November became December it became a struggle to even get out of bed as the weight of despair pressed down on him. He missed appointments. He got dates mixed up. Eventually he stopped even trying, and Sora slowly began the process of isolating himself from his friends.

He would have been successful in doing so as well had it not been for Kairi.

His gummiphone had long since been switched off and Sora was hunched over the shoebox that contained the broken shards of angel, despairing at the fact that he still hadn’t been able to make any progress in reassembling it. And then, quite suddenly, there was a never-ending thundering of knocks against his door.

He ignored it.

The knocking somehow managed to increase in intensity.

Sora clicked his tongue.

And then he was so rudely pulled out of his brooding when the knocking ceased and a familiar female voice yelled, “If you ignore me I swear to god that I’ll keep knocking on this door until it falls off its hinges!”

Kairi was slim and petite and wouldn’t strike anyone as the sort of person who could take a sturdy door down. But Sora had been with Kairi on some crazy nights out and he had witnessed her lift a stop sign clean out of the road once like some drunken Arthur pulling out an octagonal Excalibur. She claimed at the time that the colours of the sign were the prettiest colours she had ever seen and even managed to drag the thing down two streets before she tripped over her own two feet, promptly threw up in a bush, and then burst into tears.

The point was that when Kairi was determined to pull off some ridiculous feat of strength she could usually accomplish it, and Sora didn’t think his landlord would appreciate him calling later that evening to say he had willingly let one of his good friends deliberately destroy the front door.

And so he answered.

He wasn’t really sure what he looked like but judging from Kairi’s audible gasp and the way her blue eyes widened, it wasn’t pretty.

“Sora,” she exhaled, looking him up and down, “What’s going on?”

Sora looked at her blankly for a moment. There wasn’t exactly a simple or even a believable answer to that, if he were to be truthful. Half-truths, then. “I broke something very important to me… and I don’t know how to fix it.”

He moved aside so that Kairi could come into his apartment. It was messier than it usually was, and he didn’t even have the presence of mind to offer her a drink or anything. Instead he made a beeline for his desk and sat down heavily, once more staring at the pitiful contents of the shoebox.

This had become something of a masochistic ritual lately.

He heard Kairi’s footsteps approaching and then she was leaning over him to peer at the box. “This is what broke?” she asked.

Sora nodded.

“I’m sorry.” A pause. “What was it?”

There were many answers to that:

_‘A portal,’_ if he wanted to sound crazy. _‘My heart,’_ if he wanted to be dramatic about it. _‘My best friend.’ ‘My lover.’ ‘What makes life beautiful.’_

“An angel,” was what he settled on. “My family have had him ever since I can remember. Every year we’d put him up on the Christmas tree.”

Kairi hummed in response, trying to parse any extra meaning from the words. “Did it break last Christmas?” she asked eventually.

“Yeah…”

The implication was obvious. Kairi wrapped her arms around Sora from behind, squeezing tightly. Sora stiffened for a moment; for all his busy year of socialising, he struggled to remember the last time he’d had actual physical contact like this. Kairi’s breath in the crook of his neck was warm and her perfume was a pleasant distraction for a moment, a moment in which some of the tension bled out of his body.

“I don’t understand it completely,” she said, her voice shaky as she took a deep breath. “I can’t even begin to imagine _why_ this broken Christmas ornament holds such power over you.” Sora’s muscles tensed again, and Kairi held him tighter. “But I know it’s important to you in some way, so I won’t question it, and you don’t have to tell me. But the angel being broken doesn’t mean that you are; it doesn’t mean that you have to be. Don’t shut me—no—don’t shut _us_ out. Last Christmas… you were really scary. I thought I was losing you. And to watch you heading back down that path again is just—” she hiccupped.

“You’ve got to come back, Sora. A-And if we need to get you help to do that, we will, okay? Because this right now is life. It’s real, and it’s happening, and we only get one shot at it. So let’s make the most of it together. You have friends who love you so, _so_ much and we’ll do anything to stop you from hurting.”

“I don’t think this is a hurt that _can_ stop,” Sora whispered.

“Don’t say that,” Kairi said, and Sora felt her tears against his neck. And Sora understood then, with startling clarity, just how much people cared for him. It was something he understood in abstract, but this was something else. Kairi was warm and soft and her embrace was comforting.

_“It would be better for you to meet a human partner, and one day you can start a family.”_

Yes, Kairi was comforting.

But she wasn’t contentment. And she wasn’t peace.

“It’s okay,” Sora said quietly, staring at the box for a long moment before he shifted, kicking the chair aside so that he could hug Kairi back. He buried his face in her hair and breathed in her fruity shampoo. And then he said, barely audible, “I’m not sure I want the hurt to stop.”

If the hurt stopped then that would be proof that Riku wasn’t a fundamental part of him. That the tug on his heart that pulled him to Riku and could only be satisfied when Riku was with him meant nothing.

The hurt being here proved one very important, and yet very basic, thing: Riku was for him. And he was for Riku. Sora had known this from the start; from the very instant they met.

This was a hurt that could not be mended.

“Thanks, Kairi.”

“For what?” Kairi sniffed and peered up at him. When she did so, her watery eyes widened at the sight.

Sora was smiling. No, not just smiling, he was _grinning_ from ear to ear and his eyes that had been so lifeless just minutes ago were now shining brightly.

“For helping twenty-five-year-old me remember something even six-year-old me understood.”

Kairi was clearly bewildered by this answer and her expression caused Sora to burst out laughing.

“Life is pretty great, huh?” he grinned. “And you’re right: we’ve only got one shot. I’m sorry for worrying you Kairi. From now on, I’ll make the most of everything.”

Sora still hurt.

And Sora felt great about that.

x~x~x~x~x

Christmas was not the most wonderful _or_ the happiest time of the year anymore. Riku’s absence made the day feel profoundly empty. Sora would still try and fix the angel, on occasion, but was always humbled by the futility of it. All he had now was the hurt, and he lived with it.

He spent that first Christmas with Kairi and Luneth. Luneth declared that Club Chocobo wasn’t hip anymore and that The Cactuar Club was _the_ place to be. Sora questioned the opinion of a man who unironically used the word ‘hip’, but they decided to have a stab at a Cactuar Christmas and Sora honestly didn’t remember most of it. Or most of the next day.

He remembered the killer hangover though, like 10,000 needles being fired continuously into his head.

He declined their offer of another crazy Christmas the next year.

Instead he went back to Destiny Islands and was greeted with much warmth and merriment from the islanders. Christmas became a family thing once again, replete with cheesy songs and even cheesier party games. Only once did his mother ask him why he hadn’t brought the Christmas angel home to put on the tree. Whatever expression was displayed on his face made her never ask again.

Roxas brought Xion home one Christmas. Sora had met her earlier in the year after having heard much about her from a besotted Roxas over numerous telephone calls. He went and visited them in Twilight Town where they had both met at university, and Roxas was positively radiating happiness the whole time.

It was a beautiful sight and it warmed Sora’s heart. But, taking his job as ‘older brother’ seriously, he couldn’t let the time pass without teasing him just a little. So of course he made it a point to tease again at Christmas.

“It’s lovely having you here, Xion. Roxas talks so fondly of you.” Their mother was smiling broadly and their father made a noise of agreement while he cut through the turkey. Or maybe it was more of an annoyed grunt as he practically wrestled with the thing.

“For him to have brought you home must mean it’s pretty serious,” Sora remarked, catching the way the couple blushed at the statement. “So I assume that means he’s told you his dark secret.”

Roxas’ face paled in an instant and he looked, wide-eyed, over to Sora, a million and one things racing through his mind over what incriminating thing he was about to say. A slow, teasing smile spread across Sora’s lips and he turned to face Xion, who looked incredibly interested in what he had to say.

“What secret is this?” she asked.

“Well, the truth is,” Sora said, angling his body so he was closer to Xion and putting his hand up to give them some faux privacy. And then in a pantomime whisper that everyone could hear, he said, “Roxas isn’t a natural blonde.”

Xion gasped dramatically and brought both of her hands up to cover her mouth, admirably keeping her giggling to a minimum as she looked over to Roxas. “You mean, this whole time…?”

“Yup. Beneath that golden exterior are some serious chocolate locks,” Sora nodded gravely.

“Don’t listen to him, Xion!” Roxas beseeched her, “This is slander!”

“The prosecution would like to submit into evidence some adorable baby pictures of Roxas that proves our case,” Sora said, reaching into his pocket as Roxas quickly dived across the table.

“No way you actually have those!” he said, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Oh, I wanna see!” Xion said excitedly.

Roxas was currently chasing Sora around the table. “Just wait till I show you pictures from that one time he went to a water park immediately after dyeing his hair and it was bright green for two months!”

“ _SORA!_ ”

And they were all laughing, brought together on this day of celebration and love. It was a beautiful Christmas, one that made Sora actually begin to look forward to the day again.

Sora didn’t ever really get used to Christmases without Riku. But over the years he was continually reminded as to why it was absolutely the best holiday.

x~x~x~x~x

Sora stood before a green door accentuated with a gaudy yellow diamond pattern. He was in Traverse Town’s First District, albeit down an incredibly easy to miss side street, which is why he had never noticed the garish door before. Still, behind this door was salvation.

Or, well, that’s what Sora was hoping for. Something needed to be _salvaged_ , at the very least.

After knocking Sora waited for a few long seconds and then an elderly gentleman stuck his head around the door and peered up at Sora through thick-lensed glasses.

“Can I help you?” the old man enquired, and Sora scratched the back of his neck in response with his free hand. The one that wasn’t holding a box.

“I hope so. Are you Mister Geppetto?”

“I am,” the man nodded, straightening up a bit so that he could open the door properly.

“Oh thank god,” Sora exhaled. “You aren't an easy man to find.” He chuckled when the man furrowed his eyebrows. “Here, allow me to explain…”

Sora introduced himself properly to Mister Geppetto and told him that he was a wedding planner. He then recounted the unfortunate incident that occurred a couple of weeks ago regarding his latest clients: a large, custom-made, ornate glass sculpture in the shape of a delicate slipper had smashed. The glass slipper was to be the centrepiece of the wedding and it was incredibly important to the bride and groom that it be repaired at all costs.

(Sora did his best to emphasise Cindy’s sorrow at this turn of events and glossed over the circumstances of the breakage, which involved Cindy’s utterly unbearable stepsisters.)

“So as you can imagine, the Internet wasn’t exactly the most useful when I tried to find out who could mend a giant extravagant glass slipper. I asked around my networks and your name came up as someone who could create and fix anything. So here I am. I can’t believe someone like you has been living in the same city as me this whole time!”

The old man listened to his story patiently and then nodded his head. “Please do come in.” He gestured for Sora to come inside and Sora looked around curiously.

The entirety of the bottom floor was open plan and most everywhere he looked there was wood. Wooden chairs, a wooden table, a workbench with various wooden creations in various stages of production atop it. But there were also intricate little gizmos made with metal, and some fascinating models made with exotic materials Sora couldn’t even begin to name.

“Apologies for the mess. My move here has been relatively recent.”

“No need to apologise, it’s much cleaner than my place,” Sora laughed good-naturedly. Geppetto fetched them both a drink and once they were both settled at the wooden table, Geppetto looked at him thoughtfully.

“I’m not sure how much help I can be. I am just a humble toymaker.”

“A humble toymaker with a massive reputation,” Sora corrected. “You have no online presence and yet you’re practically famous. I was assured that if anyone can fix this glass slipper, it’s you.”

Geppetto hummed. “I assume the contents of that box you have are the slipper shards?”

Sora nodded. “You assumed correctly. Here.” He lifted the box up onto the table and removed the lid. He also slid a photograph of what the slipper used to look like across the table so the other had a reference to go off. Geppetto peered at the contents and was silent for a minute or two while he considered if he’d actually be able to help.

“I’ll do it.”

“You will?” Sora stood up and he could have hugged the old man in that moment. “Thank you so much! Cindy will be so happy! Oh and don’t worry about munny, we’ll obviously pay generously for your kindness.”

“Thank you, but I’ll only charge my regular rate. Munny is of no major concern to me and if it will make that young bride happy then that will be a wonderful bonus. After all, I’ve fixed things in a worse state than this.”

Sora froze at those words and stared at Geppetto as if he was one of the most wondrous things in the universe. Sora swallowed heavily. “Y-You have?” he choked out, his voice thin and weak. “W-Worse than this?”

“My dear boy, whatever is the matter?” the kindly man asked, moving over to place his hand on Sora’s shoulder.

“I—I…” Sora collapsed into his chair, still staring up at Geppetto. “Worse things…”

The slipper had shattered cleanly and the disparate shards were plentiful, but large enough to be recognisable to someone who knew what they were doing. If Sora hadn’t been able to track Geppetto down he had volunteered himself for the task. But now…

“Ah, Sora, was it? Is everything all—”

“W-Would you mind waiting here? For a bit? I need to—I need to just get something,” Sora rambled, standing up again. He was unsteady on his feet, unbalanced by a dizzying feeling of _hope_. He hadn’t felt anything like this in years.

Sora didn’t really give the old man a chance to respond because he was quickly out of the door and heading towards the closest metro station. The journey from the First District to the Third District wasn’t the longest, but he was restless the whole way there and nearly knocked his door down in frustration when he kept fumbling with the key to his house. And then he was sprinting up the stairs.

_Maybe…_

Desperately pulling down the ladder to the attic.

_Could it be?_

Groping madly for a familiar little shoebox.

_Was it okay to hope like this again?_

Shards just as broken today as they were four years ago.

_Was there a way to mend the hurt after all?_

He nearly gave poor Geppetto a heart attack when he burst through his door again a couple of hours later.

“H-How about this?! Can it be—it be f-fixed?!” Sora wheezed, doubled over after all that sprinting. He was still spinning wildly through loops on the world’s most intense emotional rollercoaster.

“Gracious, are you crying?” Geppetto asked, but Sora waved attention away from his red eyes and put it squarely on the box. While he set about recovering more of his breath, Geppetto tentatively lifted the lid of the box up and observed the shattered porcelain within.

Sora didn’t dare speak. He wasn’t even sure if he _could_ , because so many sentiments right now were vying to be voiced that his vocal cords felt paralysed with overload.

“This certainly isn’t good,” Geppetto said after long, drawn out minutes. Whatever hope was keeping Sora buoyant collapsed underneath him, and he fell to his knees heavily.

“Yeah…” he said, voice hollow.

Geppetto admirably kept his alarm to a minimum. “What am I looking at?” he asked.

Sora wordlessly pulled out his gummiphone and scrolled through his gallery until he found an old photograph depicting a time when the angel was whole. When Sora was whole.

The old man gently took the phone and observed the angel, then looked back to the contents of the box. “Would it not be easier to just buy yourself a new one?” he asked eventually.

“It _has_ to be that one,” Sora said thickly, and he could feel tears threatening his eyes once more. God, this was stupid. So stupid. Why had he let himself get so carried away? Hadn’t he made peace with this being the way of things now? Why…

“That angel… he’s so important to me. He means everything. It’s my fault he broke, and now he’s stuck like that, all alone… I have to fix it, but I can’t. I’ve tried s-so many times but… And so I thought that finally, maybe there was a way to undo my mistake but…” Sora sniffed. “I’m sorry. This is—I didn’t mean to get like this. This was meant to be a business call and I’m kind of unprofessionally having a mental breakdown on your floor so if you could just… excuse me for a moment.”

Sora shakily stood up, feeling thoroughly foolish. He was intending to head straight for the door before a warm, calloused hand caught his wrist and stopped him.

“I know how you feel.”

Sora’s eyes widened. It was surely impossible for Geppetto to know, but he had spoken with such gravity in those words that Sora was convinced. He allowed himself to be led back to the table and he took a seat, watching Geppetto closely.

Sora had been so wrapped up in making sure Cindy’s big day wouldn’t be ruined by the loss of her slipper, and then subsequently distracted by the possibility of seeing his most cherished person again, that he had failed to notice the weight that hung heavily on Geppetto’s shoulders. How his kindly eyes lacked the spark that surely lit them up once. That the tension that held him together also looked to be pulling him apart.

He was lonely. Painfully so.

Sora felt terrible for not having realised it sooner.

“I love kids,” Geppetto said, leaning back in his chair. His expression was wistful, his mind clearly far away from this humble little home. “I love seeing the smiles on their faces, hearing their joyous laughter. To me there really is no greater thing. I make toys to that end, in order to bring just a little bit more happiness into this world. I am thankful that I have a talent for it. Clearly a talent so widely talked about that it led you here today.”

He paused, and the corners of his mouth downturned sadly. “However, I was never blessed with children of my own. No matter how much I wished to be a father, it was something denied to me in one way or another. I got so lonely that one day I started a new project. Something that was for me this time, and not for any child. I spent months working on this wooden puppet…” Sora could see Geppetto tearing up, his voice shaky for this next part of his story. “And oh, how I loved him. I treated him like he was my son. My little Pinocchio. I’m sure everyone thought me quite mad, but that puppet brought me more peace than anything had in years.

“There was a fire. At my old place. The cause of it is still unknown, but I’m not sure that the cause really matters. I lost everything in it: my house, all of my toys, my darling Pinocchio. Losing him really did feel like I had lost my son. There was a profound ache in my heart that still persists, even though I moved far away to this city in the hopes of having a fresh start. Perhaps I am just a silly old man projecting too much onto a puppet, but I know that if there were even the slightest chance that I could have turned that ash back into my Pinocchio, I would have dedicated every waking moment to it. So this angel of yours... I understand how you feel. All of the pieces are there?”

Sora nodded.

“Then there is still a chance of fixing him. I cannot say how great that chance is, but I would certainly like to try and do this for you.”

Sora stared at the man with wide, watery eyes. Salvation really was behind this door.

“T-Thank you! Thank you so much!” Oh crap, he was sobbing again. How was it that Riku could still reduce him to tears when he wasn’t even here? But it wasn’t just that. Geppetto was such a lovely man, so readily willing to help despite his own hardships.

“It won’t be something quickly accomplished,” Geppetto warned, but Sora was shaking his head and standing up.

“Take as long as you need,” he said, pulling the man up out of his chair and into a hug. “Seriously, thank you. I know you said munny isn’t big for you, but I swear I’ll give you all my munny if you want it. My business is doing well, s-so it’s a lot. I’ll give everything I have if he’s fixed. B-But no pressure, I just… thank you for trying. I’ll still compensate you even just for trying.”

“Shh,” Geppetto soothed him. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, lad. Just leave the angel with me and I’ll see what I can do.”

It was a wonder Geppetto ever got Sora to leave his house with the way the younger man kept thanking him profusely every two seconds. When Sora did eventually leave it was late at night and the metro had stopped running, so he took a taxi home instead.

And although he tried to contain it, doing everything within his power to keep it under control, hope had seeped back into his heart.

x~x~x~x~x

“Geppetto!” Sora called as he stepped into the man’s house. “Little Chef was experimenting with different gateau flavours for the upcoming festive season and he gave one to me so I thought we could split it!”

He closed the door behind him and smiled when he felt something pawing at his trousers. “Hey there Figaro,” he cooed, kneeling down to stroke the little black and white cat. Figaro purred happily. He had actually been a gift from Sora to Geppetto. Sora had been in charge of the wedding for a couple of avid animal lovers and they had insisted on giving away shelter kittens as party favours. Getting the necessary licensing and documentation for that had been a nightmare but it was worth it to see so many of them rehomed. Figaro hadn’t been so lucky, but Sora had scooped him up in the nick of time and knew of the perfect home for him.

Geppetto had cried a little at first, and now the small cat was definitely spoilt rotten.

Figaro pawed at the cake box curiously and Sora quickly lifted it up out of harm’s way. “Sorry buddy, not for cats,” he chuckled. He placed it on the table and then furrowed his eyebrows. Geppetto didn’t usually take so long to come and greet him.

“Geppetto?” he called again. “Did you hear me? Free cake!”

He heard a lot of fumbling around coming from upstairs all of a sudden, followed by a rather flustered, “Ah! Y-Yes, I’ll be right down!”

Figaro meowed curiously.

“Yeah, very suspicious,” Sora agreed, but he set about gathering some plates from the kitchen so that he could lay out a nice spread. He wondered when he had become so comfortable treating Geppetto’s house like this, like some sort of second home. He was broken out of such musings when his old friend finally showed himself.

“Busy day?” Sora asked, raising an eyebrow when he saw Geppetto concealing something behind his back.

“In a manner of speaking.” Figaro meowed again, loudly this time. “Yes yes I’m sorry, Figaro.” Geppetto turned to face Sora, looking a little guilty. “I’m afraid Figaro isn’t very happy with me. I’ve been ignoring him a little these past couple of days.”

“You working on a new toy or something?”

“I had a breakthrough with one of my projects and I wasn’t able to stop once the pieces started falling into place.”

Sora placed the plates on the table and finally revealed Little Chef’s latest creation. “Well,” he said, smiling, “You gonna show me? Don’t keep me in suspense! Oh, how big do you want your slice to be?” Sora began pushing the blade of a knife into the soft sponge.

“Listen Sora, I had wanted to give this to you closer to Christmas… but I just can’t wait. I was up all night working on it.”

Sora paused his movements and looked more closely at Geppetto. Sure enough, the old man had dark circles under his eyes. “Woah hey, is it good for you to be doing stuff like that at your age? Take it easy, Geppetto. Don’t push yourself too hard.”

“My wakefulness has been very productive though. Look.” He finally brought his hands out from behind his back and there, nestled in his palms, was a very familiar porcelain angel.

Sora dropped the knife.

“Is that…?” Sora didn’t dare form the words for fear of shattering what must be a dream.

“Getting started was the hard part. But I’ve worked steadily on your angel these past months and this is the result. It has turned out much better than I ever expected.”

Sora was completely blind to the way Figaro had instantly jumped on the knife, licking happily at the icing on it. His feet felt heavy as he took it step by step to close the distance between himself and the perfectly formed angel. He reached out carefully and very lightly ran his fingers over soft silvery hair. Pretty aquamarine gemstone eyes glittered in the light. Even the downy wings had been affixed once more just the way they had been.

“Holy…” Sora choked. “Geppetto this is amazing. Oh my god I can’t—this is just… How can I ever repay you?” Sora was already gearing up to transfer his entire bank balance over to Geppetto but the man just placed a work-worn hand over one of his and smiled.

“You have done so much for this old man, Sora. This was the least I could do to repay your kindness.”

Sora gently took the angel into his hands, mindful of the way they were trembling. He could feel hot, happy tears pricking at his eyes and there was no holding back the hope now. It bubbled up like a geyser and exploded throughout his entire being. This moment, this feeling… he hadn’t thought them possible, and yet here he was.

He could see Riku again.

He had so much to tell him. So much that he wanted to say and do and—and Christmas was just over a month away! He had to prepare everything, make sure his house was spotless and dig out his old Christmas tree that had just been gathering dust in his attic. He’d need to tell his parents he wouldn’t be coming home that Christmas and—

“You did well managing to save so many of the pieces. It certainly made my work a lot easier,” Geppetto smiled, but the words ground Sora’s mind to a halt.

“Wait,” he said, that familiar cold feeling of helplessness not willing to be so easily displaced by hope. “So many of them…?”

Geppetto nodded. “All but one, really. You can’t tell though, thanks to his gown.”

Afraid to know what that meant, but already having a pretty good idea, Sora tentatively lifted up the angel’s robe and saw what the old man was talking about. There was a hole in the angel’s chest, right where his heart ought to be.

“No,” Sora whispered. “But I… I gathered them all. I’m sure I did, I made sure to…”

Geppetto had been saying something but cut himself off upon realising that his guest’s enthusiasm had suddenly fallen through the floor. When asked if everything was all right, Sora wanted to scream.

How many times were his hopes going to be dashed like this? Things hadn’t really been ‘all right’ since that fateful Christmas and it was coming up to _five years_ now. Half a decade of hurt that Sora thought he could live with but to have the angel perched in his hands like this, so close to being completed and yet so far away was just too much. In some ways it was worse.

But Geppetto had worked hard for his sake. And that was why Sora was able to paste on a smile and say that everything was fine, and thanked the kind man for all of his hard work.

He left pretty quickly after that, completely forgetting about the cake.

He was able to gain access to the flat above Le Grand Bistrot and searched everywhere for the missing piece but, as was to be expected after so many years having passed, it was nowhere to be found.

Sora tried to remain optimistic. Maybe this would be enough. Maybe the angel didn’t _have_ to be completely complete for the portal to work. Deep down he didn’t believe that, but he was better at lying to himself these days.

He found the old Christmas tree, not having the courage to purchase a brand new one. He set it up in his living room and it looked small in the space, practically threadbare. Whatever Christmas ornaments he had lying around ended up on the tree but it still looked empty, and the angel looked lonely atop it.

But still he hoped. He was jittery on Christmas Eve and hadn’t really gotten much sleep lately but he stood in front of the tree and held his breath when midnight hit.

Nothing.

Sora swallowed but stayed standing as the second hand made one full revolution, then another and another until it was ten minutes into Christmas day and still nothing happened.

Finally he sighed, shoulders falling under their own weight.

So it was to be another year alone. He should be used to this by now.

The angel still looked so lonely balanced atop the pitiful tree. Before going to bed Sora decided to fluff some of the branches up so it didn’t look quite so depressing. He lost himself in the task, the synthetic fronds sliding between his fingers as he filled them out and made it look more like an actual tree again.

_Clink_.

Sora paused, then glanced down in time to see a porcelain shard skitter slightly against the hardwood floor before coming to a stop by his side.

He stared at it for a moment. He felt like he knew the shape; he’d been staring at that shape a lot these past couple of weeks. As if in a dream he picked up the shard and rose to his feet, light and dizzy, carefully bringing the angel down and looking at the hole left in his chest.

With baited breath he lined the pieces up and it neatly slotted in, the angel whole once again. The angel's gemstone eyes glinted as if he had never been broken in the first place, and Sora was shaking when he reached up and placed the angel back.

“Please.”

Sora didn’t realise he’d said that out loud. The cycle of hope and despair that kept throwing him for a loop increased in intensity as Sora stared up at the angel.

_“Please.”_

Nothing happened. But he could _feel_ it. The tug, the pull. In that moment it was re-energised, injecting his heart with all the hope and love and contentment thought lost to it. It had to work. It _had_ to.

“Riku, please,” he said beseechingly.

And then Sora did something he had never done before: he closed his eyes and brought his hands together, and he prayed.

Despite knowing of the existence of actual angels, Sora had never really felt compelled to pray before. But in that moment he prayed to Riku and could almost hear the way Riku’s disapproving voice was calling him out on his blasphemy, praying to a mere guardian angel as opposed to the proper authority.

“Please.”

Despite his closed eyes the darkness suddenly lit up, fireworks of pure light exploding behind his eyelids. When Sora squinted his eyes open he was met with a sight he had lost all hope of ever seeing again:

The porcelain angel was brilliantly lit up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eagle-eyed readers will notice the chapter count has increased. This thing got long. No one is surprised. I want to give a massive thank you to my beta; she has diligently worked her way through this entire fic. That's right, it's all written! No more waiting! I just need to make a few minor edits, but I'm planning on releasing the chapters every other day (or every day if y'all are thirsty aha).
> 
> Time has lost all meaning in these uncertain times, so why not have Christmas in quarantine? I hope you stick around, dear reader, and enjoy this tale of a lifetime of Christmases. As always, reviews are always held close to my heart. Stay safe, and I hope to see you again in the next chapter! 
> 
> May your lives be blessed with bountiful SoRiku goodness~


	4. Prudence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling”— Oscar Wild

A combination of heat and light exploded outwards from the angel, the force of it knocking Sora backwards. Riku appeared in a burst of righteous holy fire, his face creased into an expression of absolute fury. The wrath of the heavens themselves were being channelled through him, his bright blue eyes shot through with specks of molten gold.

Honestly it was one of the most terrifying things that Sora had ever seen, even more so when Riku’s unrivalled and inhuman strength got him by the collar and slammed him hard against the wall. And yet despite the pain that rattled through his bones at the rough treatment, his hurt was gone. His heart swelled in spite of this intimidating display, his prevailing reaction being sheer _relief_ that his guardian angel really had returned to him.

Riku was furious but all Sora could do was smile. He reached out and cupped Riku’s cheek, assured that the fire cloaking the angel wouldn’t burn him. An indescribable happiness overwhelmed him just to be able to feel Riku like this again.

“Riku,” he choked out, “I—”

“Silence!” Riku commanded, the flames surrounding him abating. Everything about him in that moment seemed so _raw_. There was no trace of the neutrality that had come to characterise him in Sora’s mind. His expression was openly displaying his hurt and anger and confusion. His tone was raised, imbued with emotion that caused it to tremble.

“You call my feelings into question, make me break my word, and deny me your touch.” Riku’s grip on Sora never faltered, pinning him easily against the wall. But the look in his eyes alone would have had exactly the same effect on the human. “All this after I broke practically every rule just so that I could see you. Regardless of the consequences I thought that at least we have Christmas; that couldn’t be taken away from me.”

Riku’s voice cracked at the end of that sentence and in the next instant everything about him collapsed. His features distorted into pain and sorrow, tears welling up in bright eyes. The grip he had on Sora weakened and Riku slid down until he was on his knees, shoulders shaking violently.

“Five years,” he continued in a voice clearly unaccustomed to dealing with this level of strain. The way his body was trembling belied that it, too, was not used to containing such depth of feeling. Sora’s pulse was beating wildly in his ears as he finally witnessed Riku with no layers of neutrality, no armour of propriety.

“It’s been five years!” Riku yelled, hysterical. “Five years of you moving forward. Five years of you living your life and me guarding it, the way things _always should have been_. I had finally accepted it, and you seemed to be doing well even without my visits. So then _why?_ Why have you summoned me back? Why were you calling to me? Why?!”

Sora let out a shaky exhale as he dropped to his knees, his own eyes already stinging with happy tears.

“What do you mean, ‘why’?” he asked with a smile, gently placing a hand under Riku’s chin to tilt his face up so that they could look at each other properly. Being immune to the passage of time, Riku looked much the same. He was still so breathtakingly beautiful. As Sora wiped away some of Riku’s tears he noticed that Riku’s hair was a lot shorter now, choppy and fluffy instead of long and flowing. It framed his face attractively.

“I’ve told you before, haven’t I? You’re the only one for me. It’s always been you.” He pulled Riku tight against him, hugging him as close as he could. Just being able to hold Riku like this once again made everything else pale into insignificance. “I’m so sorry for everything that I said, Riku. I love you.”

There was a brief moment of hesitation, one that Sora recognised well. Riku was currently weighing something up. In the past he had found this to be an annoying habit of the angel’s but right now he was so grateful for it. For anything that Riku did.

Conclusion reached, Riku’s own arms reached out and returned the hug just as tightly. And then, with absolutely no neutral traces to his tone, Riku said, “I love you, too.”

Sora gasped, his eyes widening at the words he had longed to hear. He almost thought he had misheard for a moment, as hearing Riku actually speak them had seemed impossible. But Riku didn’t allow him the time to question. He squeezed tighter, warm breath ghosting over the crook of Sora’s neck as he said, “For the avoidance of _doubt_ , Sora: I love you, too. I love you.”

He pulled back so that he could cup Sora’s face. Despite it being the middle of winter Sora felt like his face was on fire, gazing into Riku’s eyes and feeling a potent sense of delight mingled with hints of confusion. What had changed over these past few years?

“You were right about one thing,” Riku said seriously, tracing his thumbs along Sora’s cheeks. “I was too passive before. I intend to correct this presently.”

Sora wasn’t able to ask what that meant or how he intended to achieve it, because in the next instant Riku had tilted his head and his lips were on Sora’s. Which, really, answered both of those questions.

Riku kissed him deeply and with a desperation that Sora was quick to match. Finally, they were reunited. This was _real_. Every part of him was tuned in to a feeling of, _‘It’s Riku! Riku’s here!’_ Sora’s hands desperately scrambled to re-familiarise themselves with every inch of his most beloved person.

There was no finesse to their actions. Everything was characterised by an urgency that came with having been apart for so many years, as if the time they had now might shatter once again. Even being able to run hands over heated skin or feel elevated pulses drum their rhythm into eager fingertips, there was still an underlying unease that this could be lost at any second.

Even though Sora could feel how _real_ Riku was there was still a part of him that couldn’t quite believe it. But Riku was determined to alleviate any lingering doubts in his human’s mind and Sora blinked up at him with wide eyes when he felt his world tilt and the hard floor beneath his back.

He was given only a split second to recall that Riku had never pushed him down before, but that realisation was quickly subsumed by the feel of Riku’s lips on his. Sora opened his mouth to the angel’s eager tongue and soon the only thing he could taste was Riku. He moaned into the kiss as lithe hips rolled down and hands worked with ruthless efficiency to divest him of his clothing until the only thing he could feel was Riku.

Riku left Sora with no choice _but_ to believe, his every movement working to assert the fact that he was _here_. Riku became the centre of everything, the very nexus of his world.

“Sora, Sora, I love you,” Riku would say in fractured sound bites whenever his mouth wasn’t busy kissing Sora breathless or lightly running teeth along the sensitive skin of Sora’s neck.

The only thing Sora could hear was Riku. Yes, he could _hear_ him. Riku was finally letting Sora hear him, every single incriminatingly erotic sound. He didn’t even make an attempt to silence the moan of pure bliss that tore from his throat when Sora gathered himself enough to place his hands on Riku’s hips and pull them down as he ground his own up. The sound caused Sora’s heart to swell as well as add yet more heat to the already blistering arousal he felt.

Riku pulled back and straddled Sora’s lap so that he could gaze down at the human. Sora shivered under the intensity of heated aquamarine eyes looking at him with lust-buttressed affection. Riku’s soft lips pulled into a needy little smile. “I need you.”

The statement alone had a powerful effect, but Sora couldn’t help but wonder if Riku was trying to make him finish before they could even really properly begin when in the next moment he made his robe disperse into thousands of tiny light particles. He writhed like that atop Sora’s lap, utterly naked, grinding his arse down on Sora’s crotch.

Sora gasped Riku’s name and in the next moment any clothing that remained on his body burnt away. Literally. The glow at Riku’s fingertips dimmed as the holy flames claimed the last scrap of material and Sora was laid bare before the angel, completely at his mercy.

Sora’s heart hammered in his chest. That was certainly one way to get him naked, and by far the quickest. It wasn’t like he couldn’t understand Riku’s impatience; he, too, was currently dealing with half a decade’s worth of pent-up emotions. But even when Riku took him in hand and gave him a couple of teasing strokes, he wasn’t far enough gone to not sober up a little when Riku immediately moved to lower himself down.

“Wait,” he gasped, and Riku obeyed, eyeing him carefully as his strong thighs kept him suspended just above Sora’s length. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he explained, pushing himself up into more of a sitting position and resting on his forearms. “I have some lube upstairs, so we can—”

“Don’t need it,” Riku said simply.

Sora frowned and sat up properly but he kept his hands resting on Riku’s hips, not wanting the angel to vacate the space in his lap.

“I get it,” he said, his words coming out somewhat laboured amid his panting and the cloying need that flared up in protest at Sora’s want to be sensible. “I’ve missed you too and want to hold you so badly, but not at the expense of—”

“I never needed it.”

Riku’s statement was simple and to the point, effectively cutting Sora off. But despite how straightforward the words were, Riku himself shifted a little bashfully in Sora’s lap and his long fingers started tracing mindless patterns against Sora’s chest.

“‘You just imply things that can be taken multiple ways and just let me read it however I want’,” Riku murmured, and Sora winced at the echo of those vitriolic words. He’d been over that argument again and again in his head over the years. He opened his mouth to apologise once more but Riku continued.

“You weren’t wrong… I did do that. And this is one of the things I left open and let you read it as you liked.”

Sora didn’t really understand the admission at first. It was only when he noticed the dark flush of pink to Riku’s cheeks that he began to clue in. He swallowed. “Y-You mean…?”

“I’m not human, so I don’t need to be treated like one. But I wanted to know how your fingers would feel, so I didn’t say anything. And I…” Riku leant forward, burying his face in the crook of Sora’s neck and pressing the occasional kiss there to punctuate his point. “I really like what your fingers do to me and how careful you always are, but I don’t need that right now. We’ll have plenty of time for that later. Right now, I need _this_.”

He ground down so that Sora’s cock slid between his cheeks, causing both of them to gasp.

“I need you. _Please_.”

Neutral or wide-open, Riku was always earnest to a fault. Any lingering doubts Sora may have had were swept away in a torrent of arousal at Riku asking for him so beautifully. It really didn’t matter how much time had passed; Sora couldn’t deny his angel anything.

He pulled Riku into a fierce kiss, swallowing his noises of pleasure as he rubbed himself against his entrance. He didn’t have the patience to tease for any longer than a few torturous seconds and so he angled himself just right to slide inside, Riku’s hips eagerly pushing down to take him in one smooth motion.

They still fit so perfectly together, Sora thought dizzily amid a surge of white-hot pleasure. He finally felt whole again. He was mesmerised by Riku’s liquid movements, undulating like a wave until the full force of all that had once been held back crashed over him, love and lust and the simple desire to be together.

This was the first time that Riku was on top riding him. Even when the fluidity of his movements became more frenzied he still took his lover deep inside with every desperate jerk of hips, squeezing exquisitely around Sora.

It was all so overwhelming. Riku was giving him everything and holding nothing back. Sora was at the mercy of this frantic bliss and was utterly taken with the way Riku’s powerful thigh muscles flexed underneath his fingertips with the singular determination to drown them both in pleasure.

Sora knew that he wouldn’t last long like this; he could already feel the coil of hot heat in his abdomen. Perhaps it was selfish but he didn’t want to be the only one to lose it so quickly, and so he drew his hands away from Riku’s thighs, indulging in squeezing his arse for a moment before dragging them up the small of his back. And then he ran his fingertips along the inside of Riku’s shoulder blades.

In an instant everything somehow managed to reach an even higher level of intensity and Riku’s rhythm completely ground to a halt, his back arching and body tightening around Sora so hard that it was honestly a miracle that the human just barely managed to hold it together.

“W-Wait,” Riku managed, his tone trembling almost as hard as his body was.

“I’ve got you,” Sora replied, tone a mixture of rough and reassuring. “You’re doing so good, Riku. T-Together, okay?”

Riku looked down at him with wide, trusting eyes. And then he nodded.

There was no pillow for Riku to hide behind this time. Sora thrust up and increased the pressure of his fingertips against Riku’s sensitive back and the angel threw his head back with a pleasure-filled shout of Sora’s name.

Before long they both came undone within each other’s arms. Riku slumped in Sora’s lap but despite his ragged breathing was still mindful of not putting his full weight on him. Sora was just as breathless, but that didn’t stop him from drawing Riku into a deep kiss.

“Riku,” he sighed happily against those plush lips, a little keening noise escaping him from where Riku languidly squeezed around him.

“Sora,” Riku responded, kissing him once, twice, then moving to nibble at the shell of Sora’s ear. “More. Please. Give me everything.”

So Sora did.

They went three more rounds before Riku finally seemed to relax, the last vestiges of his pent-up tension bleeding away under Sora’s gentle fingertips as he stroked the top of his head. Somehow they had managed to progress to the bed, inching a little closer each time before succumbing to the magnetic pull of each other.

But now was a moment of respite. Riku’s head lay softly in Sora’s lap and Sora’s heart swelled with affection as he petted him, able to actively feel the way contentment claimed his angel.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Riku replied.

Sora wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to hearing those words, but he certainly wouldn’t tire of hearing them. The tug on his heart, their special link, pulsed with unrestrained affection.

As if sensing the question that Sora wanted to ask, Riku sighed lightly and snuggled into Sora’s lap. “I thought that you would get over it,” Riku admitted. “That you would get over me. Your love never should have been mine to begin with, so I thought that it would only be a matter of time until…” He closed his eyes against the thought. “If I said ‘I love you’ it would have felt like I was adding permanence to something that should only be temporary.”

“Riku, I have never been more certain about anything in my life than I am about you,” Sora replied, his tone soft but making sure to impress this fact upon his angel. He wouldn’t let Riku doubt him ever again, nor would he be content to let Riku keep running away. He’d already lost him once and it had cost them half a decade. From now on he wanted to do this right. “It has always been you, and always will be.”

Riku let out his little quirk of breath, the beginnings of a laugh never to be fully formed.

“Maybe I always knew that, really,” Riku mused, his voice sounding very far away for a moment. Wistful. “From the very beginning there was something different about you. I could feel it; something unlike anything I had felt before. But I was trying to be a good guardian angel, a good confidant, a good friend, a good lover… I was trying to be all things at all times and as a result, I ended up being nothing much of anything.”

“That’s not true,” Sora said firmly. It hurt him to hear Riku being so hard on himself, like he was trying to take on all the blame for everything. Sora was just as culpable if not more so. He was the one that had always kept pushing until he crossed the line.

Riku just hummed noncommittally in response and they lapsed into silence. Sora continued to card his fingers through Riku’s choppy hair. Despite how wild and unkempt it had become from their previous activities it was still silky to the touch.

“When did you cut your hair?” Sora asked.

Riku stiffened under his touch and for a brief moment his expression hardened into the neutrality that Sora remembered so well. The sight made Sora’s heart drop.

“Riku?”

Riku pushed himself up and leant against the headboard, fingers idly picking at the sheets.

“It was a punishment,” he eventually admitted, voice dropped low.

“A punishment?” Sora furrowed his eyebrows. “But why? Aren’t angels supposed to be merciful?”

Riku met his gaze then. He was full of that intense earnestness as he said, “If I am to be at anyone’s mercy, I want to be at yours.”

All air escaped Sora’s lungs at those words. Riku was the only one who could leave him so consistently floored and in awe. The words caused affection to bubble up in his chest and, despite his sated state, heat to prickle just under the surface of his skin.

He had no idea how to respond to that. Thankfully he didn’t have to as Riku continued. “After the angel broke and we were parted, I tried to think of a way back to you. Only one of them seemed viable: I tried to fall. So they punished me for it.”

Sora’s eyes widened. “Fall? You mean you were just gonna… just gonna leave heaven entirely?”

“Heaven’s light pales in comparison to yours.”

Sora sucked in a breath. “Isn’t that blasphemy?” he asked.

“Yes,” Riku said simply. “But it is also the truth.”

Another wave of affection. Another pulse of heat. “Riku…” Sora reached out, taking one of Riku’s hands in his own and linking their fingers together.

“I would imagine,” Riku began softly, “How you would react if I did fall. If I just showed up on your doorstep one evening, or if I surprised you by casually walking into Le Grand Bistrot one day while you were eating a pastry. Just nonchalantly sitting down at your table and then waiting for you to process it.” The light exhale of an amused breath. “I would wonder what expression you’d have. Would you be happy to see me? Would you even want me there?”

Sora squeezed his hand at that, emphasising how they slot perfectly together.

“I would think about all of the things that we could do, being able to spend more than just Christmas together.”

More than just Christmas? Those words conjured up such sweet images in Sora’s mind. Riku moving into his house and them being sickeningly domestic together. Travelling the world together. Introducing Riku to all of his friends. Taking Riku home to meet his parents. Heck, even simple things like getting Riku to ride a bike. Did angels even have bikes up in heaven? Sora doubted it. There were so many new experiences that he could introduce Riku to, so many new experiences for them to uncover together…

It sounded too good to be true.

Sora didn’t know the intricacies that came with falling but they surely couldn’t be good, especially if Riku had been punished for even attempting it. A future that impossibly sweet surely carried a price that was even more impossible.

“What would have happened to you if you did fall?” Sora asked tentatively. He couldn’t allow himself to get swept up in fantasies, especially when he was certain that a cruel reality lay underneath them.

“For all intents and purposes, the way I was planning on going about it, I would have been a human. I would be free to live out my life, preferably by your side.”

Sora narrowed his eyes. Riku’s words rang with truth, but the way his gaze shifted minutely away from him to focus on anything else belied that he wasn’t giving Sora the full story.

“Okay, so say you did that. You live a full life as a human. What comes after?” he asked.

“After…” Riku murmured. “If I were to die, then…”

Riku’s silence spoke volumes. Sora’s heart felt like it temporarily stopped.

“You can’t fall,” he said seriously. “I won’t let you.”

Riku bit his lip. “Even you would deny me?” he asked ruefully.

“Deny you the opportunity to cast yourself into oblivion? Or condemn yourself to hell or whatever you call that place? Of course I would! How could I live knowing that you—you—”

Riku vanishing from this world had been the most painful thing Sora had experienced, even when he knew that Riku was still out there protecting him. The thought of Riku being wiped entirely from existence was utterly unbearable.

Suddenly a chilling thought gripped Sora: even if he _had_ acted on his darker thoughts and crossed the boundary prematurely… would he have even been able to be with Riku? The fact that Riku had deemed falling as the only viable way to reunite them made him think that no, maybe this time right now was all they had.

“You told me that I couldn’t just live for one day,” Sora said. “And this is the same. You can’t just live for one person. There were people before me… and there will be people who come after me. We all need you. I don’t want to deprive you of eternity just because I want you for a lifetime.”

Riku finally looked back over at him, expression full of wonder. He reached out with his free hand and gently traced the lines of Sora’s face, along his eyebrows, tracing the tip of his nose, before cupping Sora’s cheek. “You’ve grown into a fine man, Sora.”

Sora flushed a little at that, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, well… don’t get me wrong. A part of me still wants to kick and scream and say that this isn’t fair, and to stubbornly keep you here with me. But I know that I’m lucky to even get one day a year, so I’m trying to focus on being grateful for that, as opposed to cursing out the other three-hundred-and-sixty-four days. So that’s why I can’t let you give everything up for me. But anything else you want, anything at all, just ask and I’ll give it to you.”

Riku hummed in the back of his throat. “I want…” He hesitated, but Sora could see how hard he was trying. Riku wasn’t used to voicing his own wants and needs. Already tonight he’d pushed through so much.

“I…”

He slid himself into Sora’s lap.

“I will always protect you,” he murmured, pressing light kisses along the bridge of Sora’s nose. “I will never waver in my duty.” Trailing kisses down to Sora’s neck, across his throat, sucking a light mark onto Sora’s shoulder and causing his human to gasp. “So when I visit you at Christmas,” soft lips grazing over hardening nipples, hips teasingly rocking back and forth and drawing out the heat that rested just below Sora’s skin. “I want to at least pretend.”

Sora groaned and Riku swooped in to devour the sound with his mouth, trailing his hands up Sora’s sides while his hips coaxed Sora back to full hardness.

“I want to be seen. Seen with you,” he said breathlessly. “To live like a human just for one day a year. To be a proper lover for you, not just hidden behind closed doors or obscured from sight when we venture beyond those doors.”

Riku’s face was flushed, his body hardwired to Sora’s touch. Little noises of pleasure escaped his lips among those pretty pleas, deep aquamarine eyes looking at Sora as if he was the single most important thing in the universe.

“For one day a year, for Christmas, I want to fall.”

“I understand,” Sora said, voice thick. He gripped Riku’s hips possessively. Riku looped his arms around Sora’s neck. “I understand, so…”

Sora lined himself up, then thrust up at the same time Riku ground down.

“Fall.”

x~x~x~x~x

Sora felt like an entirely new man when the new year began. Imbued with a new sense of purpose now that he knew Riku was really and truly back in his life, the lingering hurt that had kept him powering through yet chained down was thoroughly mended.

And now that he was free, he had big plans.

He decided that just because Riku could only be with him one day of the year didn’t mean that they _couldn’t_ do all of the things Sora had imagined when he pictured their lifetime together. Travelling, meeting his friends, meeting his family… they could still do all of that. Sora just had to put in the effort to plan it all; how fortuitous that planning things was literally his job.

He was already a successful wedding planner, but he wanted to expand. Thankfully his less than stellar understanding of how to computer was overcome by once more enlisting Brain’s help, who did something with algorithms and keywords and optimisation and… okay, so Sora didn’t really understand anything that Brain had so patiently taken the time to explain to him, but he _did_ understand exactly what to do when he started getting more requests from prospective clients.

He also made sure to buy Riku some clothes. They’d taken his measurements when they eventually woke up in the early afternoon of Christmas Day. Sora didn’t have anything that would fit Riku even halfway decently, but all of the shops were naturally closed on Christmas. Despite Sora’s assurances that he would have a great wardrobe waiting for him next Christmas, Riku still voiced his desire to help.

And so Sora had given his angel a crash course in online shopping and Riku’s clothing picks were… questionable, at best. But Riku had seemed happy with his purchases and Sora decided to reserve judgement for next year. Maybe Riku really _could_ pull off the baggy jeans and zippered vest tops…

But just in case he still went clothes shopping on his lover’s behalf. It was during one such trip that he came across Geppetto being eagerly pulled along by a little girl. The kindly man was positively beaming.

“Hey, Geppetto!” Sora greeted him.

“Ah, Sora,” Geppetto nodded, smiling even wider.

Sora crouched down so that he was eye-level with the child that accompanied him. “Hi there,” he smiled, “My name’s Sora. What’s your name?”

The little girl glanced up at Geppetto. “Papa?” she asked.

“It’s all right, Cleo, Sora is a good friend of mine.”

That seemed to be good enough for her, and she turned to face Sora with a wide grin and rosy cheeks. “Hiya Sora! I’m Cleo!”

“It’s nice to meet you, Cleo,” Sora greeted her. But just now, hadn’t she called Geppetto ‘papa’? He raised an eyebrow at his old friend, and Geppetto chuckled under the weight of Sora’s curious gaze.

“Cleo, how about you buy yourself some sweeties?” he asked, indicating the nearby sweetshop and dropping a few munny into her hand. “But be sure to come right back, okay?”

“Okay papa!” she said, and skipped off into the shop. The windows were wide enough that Geppetto could keep an eye on her and make sure she was safe.

“Sweet kid,” Sora commented, standing by Geppetto’s side. “But what’s going on?”

“I can’t quite explain it myself,” Geppetto admitted. “In the early hours of New Year’s Eve there was a knock on my door. Now you can imagine my surprise at having a visitor at such a time. I nearly slept through it, actually. Figaro was the one who roused me. So I open my door and there she is, this darling little girl shivering in the cold. She was visibly upset, so I took her in, fetched her a blanket, and made her a hot chocolate to warm her up. I let her rest, of course. And as soon as it was an appropriate hour we went together to the police station. I was certain her parents must be worried sick, but…”

Geppetto trailed off, scratching his head.

“But?” Sora urged.

“There seemed to be no records of the girl anywhere. We put out a call, scoured missing persons’ reports. They think she must have escaped from somewhere bad, that her parents hadn’t even bothered to document her birth. She was so quiet in the beginning… honestly it’s a miracle that she found her way out of there.”

Sora blinked. “A miracle?”

“Yes, that’s the only explanation I can possibly think of. Luckily she seemed to take to me right away, so I offered to act as her guardian in the interim. But you know me, Sora, I’m too soft for my own good. We’re actually on the way to formalise adoption papers. It would seem that my prayers have been answered, that every wish I made upon a star had been heard by someone or something. It cannot be anything other than a miracle, don’t you think?”

“You had a hand in it, didn’t you?” Sora asked next Christmas from his place on the sofa, smiling fondly as he watched Riku excitedly unwrapping all of his clothes. Sora had thought it would be nice to wrap them up and place them under the tree, and Riku had honest to god _smiled_ at him when he learnt the gifts were for him.

“Hand in what?” Riku asked, distractedly holding a sweater up against his chest.

“Geppetto’s miracle. He’s always wanted to be a father, and then a daughter for him conveniently shows up not long after he fixed my angel and reunited us. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“Miracles are not my department,” Riku stated matter-of-factly, twirling some gold ribbon around his finger before carefully peeling back the layers of bright red wrapping paper surrounding his next gift.

“That doesn’t mean that you don’t know who to talk to,” Sora pointed out. “With the right connections, I’m sure you could send a request to the Miracle Department.”

“That’s…”

“Thank you,” Sora said. He got up from the sofa and joined Riku on the floor, wrapping his arms around him. “He’s been so happy this past year. You have honestly given him the greatest gift. You have definitely said ‘thank you’ to him, okay?”

Riku didn’t say anything to confirm or deny Sora’s suspicions. He didn’t need to.

“You wanna meet him?” Sora asked, gently playing with the hair at the nape of Riku’s neck.

Riku gasped. “That would be…”

“I mean, I’m already planning on introducing you to my friends. And Geppetto is certainly one of them.”

Riku returned the hug and melted against Sora. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

Sora smiled and pressed a soft kiss to the top of Riku’s head. Even though his new hairstyle was the result of a punishment, he still looked perfect to Sora. And Riku seemed to wear his new look with a sense of pride.

“It’s visual proof of just how far I’m willing to go for you,” Riku had told him earlier, by way of explanation. “An outward reminder of my defiance, but also of my love.”

They were content to hold each other like that for a while, surrounded by colourful ribbon and bright wrapping paper, the warm glow of the fireplace bathing them in a gentle light. Riku’s own light had dimmed to the point that it was barely noticeable. He’d done it on purpose; this way he would be visible to others. No more would Sora be walking around Traverse Town with one hand holding onto ‘thin air’.

“So!” Sora said excitedly, pulling away, “How about we pick out the perfect ‘meeting the friends’ outfit?”

This triggered the first of what would be many impromptu living room fashion shows. Sora was pleased to note that all of his outfit choices for Riku looked utterly amazing on the angel, and with each successive outfit he tried on, the greater his urge to just rip them away entirely and ravage Riku right there on the makeshift runway they’d hastily constructed out of pillows.

Riku’s own picks were… well. Turns out he’d ended up ordering more than Sora had realised, much more than the ludicrously baggy jeans and tight-fitting vest tops that seemed more befitting of a male go-go dancer. No, he had apparently purchased these sort of half-trouser wader-esque things to be worn over jeans and belted to them. They poofed out ridiculously and Sora honestly couldn’t comprehend what he was viewing as Riku turned around to show off the bizarre outfit, complete with gloves that pointlessly only covered half of his palms.

And yet it soon became clear to Sora that Riku’s dire sense of fashion would not dissuade him from thinking that the angel was the most glorious creature in existence.

Even the tartan disaster he tried on next didn’t put him off.

“Are those _thigh belts_?” Sora asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Riku said simply, clearly finding nothing odd with wearing not one, not even two, but _three_ belts looped around each thigh.

Sora burst out laughing, and simply laughed all the harder at Riku’s mildly perplexed look. “I love you,” Sora grinned.

He ended up loving that particular outfit as well when the belts somehow made it into the bedroom later that night, finding a new home on Riku’s wrists as well as his thighs. Sora’s half-lidded gaze of desire took in the delectable sight; his angel tied up like the most irresistible Christmas present. Sora spent the better part of the night unwrapping Riku, relishing the way he strained against the belts and unravelled around his fingers.

He’d been preoccupied last year but from now on, Sora was going to be taking full advantage of Riku’s admission that he liked when Sora fingered him.

It was a very merry Christmas.

x~x~x~x~x

“Calm down, Riku, it’s gonna be fine,” Sora reassured him, squeezing his hand.

“I am calm,” Riku responded. To anyone else, maybe that would have been believable. But Sora knew his angel much better than that. There was a slight hint of stiffness to his features, not quite the perfect neutrality he used to cloak himself in, but something of a ‘neutral-lite’. It was clearly being employed to plaster over the more extreme feelings, such as the nerves Sora knew Riku to be feeling.

“Geppetto is going to love you, and so are my friends.”

“Let’s just take this one step at a time,” Riku muttered, and Sora chuckled softly before placing a quick kiss on Riku’s cheek.

“Ready?”

“Not really.” But Riku still reached out and knocked on the gaudy yellow and green door even so.

Cleo was the one to answer, blinking up at the pair of them with her big brown eyes before beaming at them and pulling the door open wider. “Papa! Uncle Sora and his boyfriend are here!” she happily exclaimed.

She dashed back into the house, Figaro weaving in-between her legs, expecting their guests to follow.

“Boyfriend?” Riku murmured.

Sora flushed. “Oh, well, you see, I had to tell them _something_ so I just—”

“I like it,” Riku said decidedly. “Well? Shall we, boyfriend?” The right corner of his mouth pulled up into something suspiciously like a smirk and Sora was certain that he was being teased right then. Honestly, ‘boyfriend’ seemed like an almost juvenile term to describe what Riku was to him, but it was the easiest way to get the general idea across.

Even if Sora himself had fancied the idea of them as boyfriends for years, he hadn’t known exactly how Riku felt about external parties viewing them as such. But if he liked the term, and it seemed like he genuinely did, then Sora felt a little silly for having worried about it.

As they stepped across the threshold into Geppetto’s neat little home they were greeted by the sight of a beautifully prepared Yule log resting on the table, surrounded by four large mugs of hot chocolate with generous doses of cream atop each like little snow-caps.

“Welcome welcome,” Geppetto greeted them, nodding towards Sora before focusing his attention on Riku. “You must be Riku.”

Riku shifted a little, his earlier unease returning, and he fiddled with the corner of the black leather jacket he wore over his cream sweater.

(Sora’s pick. He couldn’t trust Riku to dress himself. He tried to remind himself that it wasn’t Riku’s fault he knew nothing about suitable combinations given that he almost exclusively wore a magical robe, but Sora had to veto the booty shorts and kaftan combo Riku had initially picked out.)

“Thank you for having us,” Riku said, and Sora hadn’t heard him speak that way in a while now: mulling over each individual word before he said them. He bowed his head respectfully despite the general stiffness to the rest of the way he held himself.

“Don’t be silly, it’s an absolute pleasure,” Geppetto smiled, holding his hand out. “Sora has told me so much about you.”

Sora was ready to get pre-emptively embarrassed, ready to jump in at any moment should Geppetto be seized with the urge to share some of Sora’s sappier gushes over his lover, but it was almost as though Riku hadn’t heard the words. He certainly didn’t seem as though he wanted to ask for more information. Instead his eyes were glued to Geppetto’s outstretched hand.

Sora bit his lip. Shit, did Riku not know what a handshake was? How _couldn’t_ he know?

He stared for a few more long moments before slowly reaching out and taking Geppetto’s hand, shaking it tentatively.

“You have no idea,” Riku whispered, as if speaking at a volume higher than this would cause the words themselves to be drowned out with emotion, “Of the happiness these hands have caused.” He looked at the old man with total sincerity. “Thank you.”

Geppetto’s eyes crinkled under the force of his smile. “Ah, I see Sora has been telling you about the toys and trinkets I make. If my creations bring just a tiny bit more happiness into this world, that is all I can ask for.”

Riku bowed his head even lower. “So much more than a tiny bit,” he said in deference.

Geppetto cleared his throat. “Come now, I’m not all that,” he chuckled, lifting Riku’s hand up and inspecting it for a moment. “Now are these the hands of a fellow craftsman?” he asked with a knowing twinkle in his eye.

Riku’s eyes widened and he stood upright, shuffling imperceptibly from side to side on his feet. “I…” He took a deep breath, and Sora could practically see him turning over different responses in his head as he did so. “Not for a long while now.” Geppetto raised a questioning brow. So did Sora. “I got a new job.”

“Ah,” he nodded in understanding.

“Papa! The hot chocolate is getting cold!” Cleo cut in from where she had already placed herself at the table.

“Oh do excuse me, we’ll have plenty of time to talk over cake. Please take a seat.”

It went really well, better than Sora could have imagined. Riku took a shine to Geppetto and even if his responses were short and vetted before he delivered them, they were always sincere. Sora stepped in whenever Riku looked to be getting a little overwhelmed; he knew that Riku’s strong point wasn’t socialising. Every now and then he’d squeeze Riku’s knee under the table or link their fingers together. He supposed he must have looked totally smitten, the two of them sharing loving glances whenever there was a slight moment for it.

Cleo dragged Riku away at some point and Sora laughed at his angel’s inability to say no, getting totally caught up in her flow. In a lot of ways it was nostalgic.

“You’ve picked a good one, Sora,” Geppetto said. “Hold onto him.”

Sora nodded. “Always.”

x~x~x~x~x

Sora’s friends were, predictably, a lot more intense than Geppetto had been. They’d arranged to meet up at the Traverse Town Christmas Markets in the late afternoon. Sora wasn’t even sure he’d be able to gather them on Christmas, but the promise of finally being able to meet his elusive hot foreign boyfriend had been more than enough to convince them.

“So this is the famous ‘Lovely Luneth’,” Ephemer had said immediately by way of greeting, a wide grin on his face.

“Wait wasn’t Luneth called ‘Ugly Riku’?” Skuld said, squeezing her husband’s hand.

Luneth immediately scowled, the look only intensifying when Kairi, who had been staring at Riku in wonder, immediately burst forward and started inspecting him from all angles.

“Like Luneth is the original in this analogy,” she said. “Holy shit you’re gorgeous!”

Riku faltered under her praise, mouth working uselessly to come up with something but apparently he couldn’t think of a suitably appropriate comment fast enough because Kairi turned to Sora to impress upon him her earlier assessment. “He’s gorgeous!” she exclaimed.

Sora grinned and wrapped an arm around Riku’s waist. “Right?”

“Are you a model?” she asked excitedly.

“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” Luneth cut in, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Hey!” Sora protested good-naturedly. “Insulting my boyfriend is the same as insulting me. And I’d keep your wedding planner happy if I were you!”

“If there even _is_ a wedding,” Luneth muttered, glaring at his fiancée Ingus.

“What?” Ingus asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Do you think I’m an ugly Riku?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Ingus said, raising his hands up in a show of innocence under this sudden interrogation.

“Exactly! You’re not gonna _defend_ me?”

“I would’ve thought the ring on your finger makes my position clear.”

“Babe…”

“Were we ever like that?” Skuld asked Ephemer, pulling a face.

“You still are like that,” Sora laughed.

“Okay but are you a model?!” Kairi hollered. “You guys aren’t giving Riku a chance to speak!”

All eyes immediately focused back on Riku and Sora felt the way he tensed and pushed into his touch slightly in an attempt to back away from their scrutiny. Sora frowned; the last thing he wanted was for Riku to be uncomfortable. He was about to tell his friends to back off a bit when Riku said:

“I’m a soldier.”

Curious eyes all blinked in surprise.

“A soldier?” Kairi asked.

“Is that why we haven’t met you until now?” Ephemer asked.

Riku nodded. “I have to deploy again tomorrow.”

“Oh no, so soon?” Skuld asked, pursing her lips. “That’s so sad…”

“I don’t really mind,” Riku replied, his voice half the volume of everyone else in their group. “Even if I miss Sora while I’m away, I know that I’m keeping him safe. And I know that I’ll be home for Christmas.”

Sora’s heart started beating out a happy rhythm and he looked at Riku in awe. “Home?” he asked. “You consider this your home?”

Riku turned around a little in Sora’s hold, his attention now solely focused on the brunette. “Home is wherever you are,” he said with soft sincerity.

“Oh my god he’s _such_ an angel!” Kairi gushed.

Sora laughed at Kairi’s choice of words and the way Riku turned a confused expression her way. His laughter added to the flush already present on his cheeks from Riku’s words and he leant up and kissed Riku’s cheek.

“Okay they’re definitely sappier than we are,” Skuld said.

Sora wasn’t even mad at the unanimous agreement.

x~x~x~x~x

And so life carried on. Sora made the most of his day-to-day life, always energised by new clients and planning their dream wedding from beginning to end. The biggest honour was when Roxas asked him to plan his and Xion’s wedding.

“We were thinking a ‘hugs and kisses’ theme, seeing as both of our names have X’s and O’s,” was the somewhat sheepish pitch, but _boy_ did Sora go to town planning a glorious extravaganza for his brother and soon to be sister-in-law.

He took Riku home one Christmas, back to Destiny Islands to meet his parents. They both thought Riku was an absolute darling.

They built a sandman on the shore of the play island at three a.m.

These were happy times, blissful even. Sure there would always be bad days, but Sora had a lot to be grateful for. He had a wonderful job, amazing friends, a beautiful family, and the most incredible lover.

Sora even became an uncle, and he took it upon himself to be that eccentric type of uncle that spoilt his nephew rotten.

Life was perfect. Life was comfortable.

Until Sora’s thirty-fifth Christmas.

That Christmas was decidedly _un_ comfortable.

x~x~x~x~x

It had started off the way most Christmases did now: with Sora welcoming Riku home the instant his angel crossed over the boundary separating their worlds. They curled up in front of the fire as Sora regaled Riku on any big events that past year, eagerly swiping through his camera roll for any highlights.

Riku’s report on his own year was always comparatively short or simply non-existent, but Sora didn’t find this off-putting anymore. Riku’s short hair was a constant visual reminder of just what Riku was willing to give up for him, and it was fairly obvious at this point that if he started going into any level of detail about what a guardian angel actually _did_ or talked about heavenly politics, a punishment would likely be on the end of it.

They talked. They laughed. They kissed. They took their time relearning the intricacies of each other’s bodies, making up for all of the days they couldn’t be together by making the most of this one.

Sora always woke up feeling utterly refreshed on Christmas morning, Riku’s strong arms wrapped around him and his sweet breath ghosting over his neck.

Riku had his own section of the wardrobe now and Sora enjoyed watching his naked love take the better part of ten minutes trying to decide on which combination of his human clothes to wear. He was getting a little better at picking out sensible combinations. Sometimes Sora wouldn’t even let Riku get that far and instead dragged Riku back into the blankets and sheets to ravage him all over again.

Sora tended to prepare a grand spread for Christmas lunch, although the foods rarely had anything to do with Christmas now. Although Riku didn’t need to eat he seemed keen on the idea of tasting as many different foods as he could while he was here, and Sora had picked this Christmas as the one where he would introduce Riku to sushi.

To say they gorged themselves would be an understatement. After Sora taught Riku how to wield chopsticks all bets were off and by the end of it, Sora was regretting quite a few of his life choices.

“You’re still eating more?” he groaned, watching as Riku reached for another _negitoro_ _gunkanmaki_. Honestly at this point it was impressive just how much Riku could put away.

“It tastes good,” Riku said simply, popping the piece of sushi into his mouth and sighing happily as he chewed.

“I don’t think I can move,” Sora whined. He was a grown ass man who really should know his limits by now but he was _weak_ to California rolls, dammit.

“No?” Riku asked, arching a perfect silvery brow. “Have you really eaten to the point of incapacitation?”

“Look just because you guard my life doesn’t mean I have to make good choices during it,” Sora pouted, unsure if he was more offended by the light judgement or the clear amusement in Riku’s tone.

“That’s a shame,” Riku murmured. “If you can’t move then you can’t…” He deliberately trailed off and sent Sora a positively _filthy_ look that was in such stark contrast to his otherwise pure and holily innocent self that it got Sora hot despite the impending food coma he felt coming on.

“Riku,” he gasped as the angel’s fingers traced teasing lines of heat across his chest that he could feel through his jumper. Riku leant in and grazed Sora’s cheek with his perfect lips as his fingers trailed even lower. He effortlessly stirred arousal within Sora, the human’s breathing already coming heavier under the ministrations.

“Sora,” Riku whispered hotly into his ear. “Gluttony is a sin.”

“Wait wha— _ow_!” Sora exclaimed as Riku squeezed Sora’s too-full tummy wickedly. “ _Riku!_ ”

Riku pulled back and laughed. Not one of his little exhales, but an honest full-bodied _laugh_ that had Riku’s bright eyes crinkling under the force of his smile as the sound chimed around them like heavenly bells. Riku didn’t often laugh like this, in fact the first time Sora heard it he did something dreadfully sappy and cried. Riku’s laugh was honestly one of the most beautiful sounds in existence, perhaps made all the more beautiful for its rarity. That Sora had now been graced by that glorious sound on more than one occasion was something he was endlessly grateful for.

It’s why he couldn’t be _too_ mad at Riku in that moment.

“You tease,” he muttered, adjusting his now-rumpled clothing and trying to give Riku a withering look. It was hard to do when the angel looked so damn pleased with himself. The fact that Riku felt comfortable enough with him to do things like tease him and be a cheeky asshole seemed like a blessing, despite how _good_ Riku was getting to be at it.

Turns out that behind that neutral façade was a sass master waiting to break free.

“That was low, you know,” Sora said, trying to complain. “Sneaky, even! That was sneaky, Riku.” He paused. “Sneaku.”

Riku rolled his eyes at the stupid name, but he was still smiling as he neatly pushed his chair back and began clearing the table that had earlier housed a veritable mountain of sushi.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Riku suggested as he piled plates high and effortlessly carried them into the kitchen. “You can burn the sushi off.”

The prospect of a walk was pretty devastating but during the five minutes in which Riku cleaned everything up while Sora channelled his inner beached whale, he came around to the idea.

They both bundled up warm in hats and gloves and scarves, Sora because he was an islander and Traverse Town winters felt harsh to him even if his friends mocked him for it, Riku because he liked the aesthetic of it more than out of any sort of necessity.

The Third District where Sora lived was close enough to the centre as to be convenient and for it to be obvious that this was in fact a city, but just enough away from the frantic hullabaloo for there to be pockets of suburbia and swathes of greenery.

Their gloved hands entwined, Sora and Riku spent hours walking around. It was easy to lose track of time in this city, especially as early evening drew more fully into night-time. Everything seemed to glitter: houses were festively decorated with Christmas lights, trees were covered in fairy lights, and the light layer of frost upon grass shimmered under streetlights.

It was just as Sora was thinking about how this had been another perfect Christmas when it happened, as if fate was waiting for the precise moment of his utter contentment to throw a cosmic spanner into the works.

They had been strolling through a nearby park when there was a sort of _shift_. The air became thick and oppressive, carrying with it a cloying feeling of dread. It was the exact opposite of the soothing comfort he felt every time Riku was present. This was something that Sora potently felt as _danger_.

His feelings were confirmed when Riku’s skin suddenly took on its usual luminescence, the angel doing nothing to limit his powers and ‘play human’ now.

The space before them distorted into a void of darkness that slowly began to take shape, smoky tendrils forming an outline of a creature. Riku shoved Sora behind him and stood in a battle stance, feet apart, while the tips of his fingers burnt away his gloves and glowed brighter with the promise of unrestrained light blasts.

Before long a figure was before them of something that looked almost human if not for the unnatural shock of cobalt eyes and the large leathery bat-like wings sprouting from his back.

A demon.

The demon possessed an explosion of red hair and he seemed to shimmer at the edges with something darker than black, giving him an eerie shadowy quality.

Intense eyes locked directly onto Sora and the human felt the air in his throat catch.

“Why hello there, _Sora_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gee I'm sure it isn't obvious what my favourite Final Fantasy game is given that I definitely didn't shove the characters in here or anything... And while I love Riku, that boy absolutely cannot dress himself. Someone should really let him know.
> 
> Welcome to all the new readers!! And thank you so much everyone for your lovely support~ Honestly I'm just glad there are people willing to read a Christmas fic in May. I hope you'll stick with me on this journey :)
> 
> May your lives be blessed with bountiful SoRiku goodness~


	5. Courage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage”— Lao Tzu

“Why hello there, _Sora_ ,” the demon said, taking his time to enjoy each and every syllable as his lips drew into a catlike grin. Piercingly deceitful eyes kept shifting from electric blue to iridescent emerald, taking in every inch of the human.

And honestly Sora would have been a lot more terrified at this turn of events had it not been for Riku slightly relaxing his posture and saying, “Oh, it’s only Lea.”

At once the menace surrounding the demon dissipated. “Hey now,” he protested, “What’s with the ‘it’s only’, huh? And how many times do I have to tell you that I go by _Axel_ now?”

“How did you manage to cross over, Lea?” Riku sighed, and Sora shuffled closer to him, peering over Riku’s shoulder. Maybe he shouldn’t have been as surprised by the demon as he was; he knew they existed. Riku had told him that years ago. But still, for one to actually _be here_ and _know his name_ …

The demon spluttered. “I _just_ told you my name is—ugh screw this. I have my ways, okay? You’re not the only one with friends on the other side.”

Riku’s eyes narrowed, even if the corner of his mouth pulled up into a smirk. “So that’s it,” he said. “I’m not sure he counts as a ‘friend’. But wait, if _he_ is involved, then why weren’t you stopped by Ve—”

As if on cue, a bright burst of blinding light shattered the empty space to Sora’s right and a blonde angel hovered above the ground, large feathery wings of light that seemed to be composed of air itself keeping him up effortlessly. Sora was fascinated by the sight; he hadn’t seen Riku actually fly before.

“Ah,” Riku said at the same time as the newcomer said, “ _Sorry_ about this Riku! Lea was summoned but he got away from me before I could shove him back into the cesspit he now calls home.”

“My name is _Axel!_ Get it memorised, dammit!”

“You’re still trying to make that a thing?” the new angel asked, raising an eyebrow. In some ways he reminded Sora of Roxas, if Roxas was a natural blonde and an eternal creature of light.

Riku ignored Lea’s (Axel’s?) frustrated growl and instead focused on the newcomer. “Ventus, _why_ was he summoned?” he asked pointedly.

“My human had another one of his brilliant theories,” the angel, Ventus, replied, rolling his eyes. “Thought that maybe Christmas, being one of the holiest days, would affect the summoning somehow. And he was right, of course. It’s how Lea managed to slip away from me.”

“Thought I’d take advantage of my little power boost and the boundary being so thin to come and take a look at golden boy over there,” the demon said, before phasing into darkness one moment and appearing directly behind Sora the next. “Had to see for myself what was so impressive about him,” he said, voice low.

He instantly phased away before the ball of holy fire Riku summoned to his hand could connect with its target.

“You’re a celebrity, Sora!” Lea laughed, reappearing where he had been stood initially. “Been causing _waves_ on the other side for thirty-five years. Can I get your autograph?”

“ _Watch it_ ,” Riku said, a feral sort of quality to his voice that Sora had never heard before. “Go back. _Now_.”

“You know you’re punching _way_ above your weight, right?” Lea asked, not at all perturbed by Riku’s threatening tone.

Sora genuinely thought that this was aimed at him. And it wasn’t as if he _hadn’t_ had those sorts of thoughts before… Riku was a guardian angel, the very personification of light itself. He was everything good and right with the world, and yet Sora wanted him in less than angelic ways.

And while Riku may have been his guardian angel, he was so much more than that. And Sora was just, well, _Sora_. Even if he was a lot more self-assured now than he had been when he was younger, it was hard to not sometimes think that Riku was _far_ too good for him.

Sora was about to respond to the question, to acknowledge that Riku _was_ out of his league but that he loved him regardless, but then he noticed that Lea was looking at _Riku_ expectantly, and that Riku himself was all tense angles and clenched fists. Sora’s eyebrows furrowed at the sight and he sucked in a breath, waiting for Riku’s reply.

His reply was merely to bite his lip and dip his head.

Conceding.

“Riku,” Sora breathed, reaching out and placing a hand on his shoulder. He tried to ignore the way his heart clenched painfully in his chest when Riku flinched under his touch.

“Sora, Sora, Sora,” Lea tutted, shaking his head. “I feel _bad_ for you, man. It’s like the light brigade _wants_ you to be lost to darkness. I mean, a celebrity like you with a no name like him? Talk about an open goal.”

“If it’s so open then why after thirty-five years is Sora still safe?” Riku asked, his earlier menace gone but there was an attempt to weave steel through his words.

“Yanno, I’m not alone in wondering how the infamous Grounded Guardian landed the job of a millennium.”

Riku’s jaw clenched. Sora could see the way he kept getting tenser and tenser, and if he really would be pure marble soon.

“I admit you’ve put up a decent fight. But really, you’ve just been _very_ lucky. I mean it helps that you got a fucking light boost from the kid. But you can’t protect golden boy forever, even if you whore yourself out to him.”

“That’s rich coming from you, Lea,” Ventus chimed in. His feet hadn’t touched the ground once and he had taken to merely observing the scene unfold for a while, sitting in the air cross-legged while his wings kept him floating. “There’s no way you’ve already forgotten the reason that _you_ were summoned. You’re still feeling it, right?”

Lea scowled for a moment before scoffing, running a hand through his vibrant hair. “Whatever. At least I’m not calling it something it’s not. I mean, what’s with that silly getup, Riku? Playing dress-up like a good little fuck doll?”

“Back off!” Sora yelled, too angry to think any better of taking a step closer towards the demon. Lea blinked in surprise at his outburst and Ventus, still in their air, uncrossed his legs and watched with great interest. But Sora wasn’t interested in them. Sora’s primary concern was Riku, who seemed to be losing pieces of himself with every slanderous word that fell from Lea’s mouth.

“How dare you talk about Riku that way?” he demanded, taking another step closer. This, at least, seemed to jolt Riku out of his funk and he moved to place himself between Sora and the demon before Sora did something stupid like try to deck him one for the vile things he was saying about Riku. For the horrendous things he was implying about their relationship. “You don’t know anything!”

Lea hummed tunelessly under his breath, his grin sharpening to such an intense point that for a moment it seemed to twist his entire face into a horrific nightmare. Bright eyes momentarily flashed amber before his face settled into haughty confidence.

“Don’t I?” he purred. “I’m willing to bet that _you’re_ the one who doesn’t know anything. For example, did you know that your ‘precious angel’ is a fraud? He was never supposed to be a guardian angel in the first place.”

“Yeah right!” Sora snorted. “Every word you’ve spoken so far has been complete bullshit, so why don’t you just fuck off back to where you—”

“ _Sora_.”

Sora stilled. Then he turned to focus on Riku. His voice just now had sounded like it was going to collapse.

“Riku?” he asked. A chill swept through him that had absolutely nothing to do with the cool winter air. Dread. Fear. Nervousness. Confusion.

But these were all side effects of a demon being here, right? Magnifying negative emotions, planting them where they didn’t belong. It’s not like there was actually any truth to Lea’s lies… right?

Riku shook his head. Lea laughed.

“You really are something else, Riku! Getting someone like _Sora_ —” he drew the name out, speaking it with mock reverence— “to believe in you. To jump to your defence without hesitation.” He leered at the silver haired angel. “Putting that ass of yours to real good use. I used to wonder what Terra saw in you. Guess it was himself, huh? You fucked your way into the Guardians and now you’re trying to fuck yourself even higher.”

Instantly, the air changed. Sora staggered back as two bright flashes of pure light threatened to blind him.

“Don’t you _dare_ speak ill of Terra!”

“Come for me all you like but you leave Terra out of this.”

When Sora gathered himself enough to blink his eyes back open, dark spots clouded his vision before subsiding to reveal both Riku and Ventus with weapons drawn and pointed menacingly towards Lea.

A faint burning smell lingered in the air and Sora glanced down to spy the ashy remains of what had been Riku’s outfit not long ago. He was wearing his armour now, that beautifully crafted work of art that Sora had only seen once many years ago. He pointed his sword directly at Lea’s throat. Ventus hovered above, his impressive wingspan casting a foreboding shadow over the scene as he too pointed a sword of brilliant light above the demon’s head.

Lea held his hands up, chuckling to himself. “Oops, forgot I was in the presence of the Terra Fan Club. Which one of you is the club president?”

Riku lunged forward with deadly precision but managed to cut off his momentum when Ventus shouted, “Stop!”

Riku was panting heavily, eyeing the flying angel carefully.

“Don’t waste your energy. I’ll deal with him,” Ventus said firmly.

“Oh, how fun,” Lea smirked, black smoke pooling around his hands. But before he could do anything, Ventus clicked his fingers and a grid of light appeared below the demon’s feet. “What the fuck?” Lea asked, and in the next instant the grid flew up into a net made of pure light. The demon cursed loudly, squirming around in the net.

“I’ll drag you back to where you belong,” Ventus said.

Sora didn’t know anything about the angel, but the coldness to his voice didn’t match the rest of him at all. It was as if his entire demeanour had flipped the instant Lea had mentioned the name Terra. Ventus flicked his gaze to Riku. “Aqua is definitely gonna hand our asses to us over this. Use these last couple of hours of Christmas to pull it together.”

The blonde angel pointed his sword at the ground and a beam of light fired from the tip. An elaborate circle appeared beneath them, intricate runes and lines running inside of it as if it was alive.

Lea had stopped struggling and was instead focused on Riku as he said, “Yeah, why not rebuild yourself? It’ll make it all the more satisfying when we _break_ you. You’re in over your head, Riku. You’re not good enough. Sooner or later, Sora will belong to us. You can’t protect him forever.”

And then a great wall of light issued forth from the edges of the circle, completely swallowing up Ventus and the netted demon.

And then they were gone.

Sora’s mind was reeling. What the hell had any of that been about? He had thought that angels and demons couldn’t just cross over as they pleased, so how was that encounter just now even possible? But more than that, the words that Lea had spoken were running rampant in his mind, some playing on repeat, some shouting themselves louder and louder until Sora’s head pulsed with pain.

Riku stood still. His suit of armour and his weapon dissipated into little specks of light, leaving him clad in his robe. But he made no effort to move.

Sora was clutching his head, trying to get the noise to just _shut up_. He glanced up to look at Riku. At his angel who was a silvery beacon of light. Even with his back to Sora, he still looked so beautiful. And he looked achingly lonely.

Sora shook his head. Whether the words were all lies or all truth or some combination of the two didn’t matter. Something was wrong; he could feel it. Even though the demon had gone, the feeling of cold and dread persisted. They wrapped themselves around his heart, tainting the very link that usually made Sora feel at peace.

He stood up straight, taking heavy steps towards Riku and reaching out to him. His fingers had barely brushed Riku’s shoulder and yet the angel violently jolted away. Sora’s heart stuttered.

“Riku,” he whispered. The dread intensified when Riku turned to face him, its grip so tight it left an acrid taste in Sora’s mouth. Something was definitely wrong. It was like Riku had reverted. No, not just reverted, but gone even further in on himself.

It had been so long, years even, since Sora had seen anything like this from Riku. This total lockdown of himself. An impenetrable neutrality. His face was all perfect hard lines, his sharp jaw stiffly set. Eyes that Sora frequently got lost in were still so pretty, but Sora knew now just how bright and expressive they could be. By comparison they were dull right now.

“Apologies.”

No. No, not that tone, not again, not the elaborate thought process that came before every single word leaving his angel’s lips. They had moved past this, hadn’t they? Riku felt comfortable enough to be himself and speak his mind and—and—

And Sora would be damned if he let things lie like this.

“Are you hurt?” Riku asked, studying him for any outward signs of injury.

“No,” he replied.

Riku was the injured one. The lines of his neutrality were etched with a deep pain. The sag of his shoulders spoke of nothing but sorrow.

“Riku,” he spoke softly, “Let’s go home.”

He held out his hand. Riku didn’t take it.

Sora tried not to be too downhearted at this. When he was younger, Sora likely would have taken this rejection personally, letting old doubts bubble up until he was convinced they were fact. But he was older now, wiser, and there was no room for those sorts of doubts. What he had with Riku was real; he’d just have to get it back.

Riku needed him. If ever there was a time for Sora to take care of Riku, it was now.

They made their way home in silence. Riku looked like he might bolt at even the softest of noises, and Sora was highly aware of the delicate nature of the situation, even if he didn’t fully understand how they had arrived at this point in the first place. But none of that mattered. Whatever political bullshit was going on between heaven and hell (or whatever they were ‘actually’ called) was inconsequential.

Sora stole a glance at his phone.

 _22:08_.

Just under two hours to try and make this right.

Riku kept two paces behind him, his face a mask of hardened indifference. Sora caught the way he hesitated when the door was held open to him, and the brunette held his breath as it looked for a moment as if Riku would just say goodbye to him here for the year and then leave.

It was only when Riku stepped into Sora’s home, _their_ home, did he release the breath he had been holding.

Riku didn’t pull away when Sora reached for his hand, but he didn’t hold Sora’s in return. Instead his hand was stiff in Sora’s hold, his every step further into their home seeming to weigh heavier and heavier down on him.

By the time they reached the plush sofa in the living room Riku looked like he might collapse under the weight of his own tension.

“Riku,” Sora said once he had gotten his angel to sit down. “Riku, look at me.” His tone was soft, and he didn’t make any sudden movements. He just waited for Riku’s neutral gaze to land on him of his own volition. “Talk to me. Please.”

Sora took a steadying breath as he watched Riku grasp for words, turning each one over in his head, placing some in the chain and discarding others. “There is nothing that needs to be said.”

It took all Sora had not to yell and say that clearly that was bullshit. Sora was passionate, and it was all too easy for him to get carried away with his emotions. Doing that now wouldn’t help anyone, and he took a moment to actually consider what Riku had said. The word _need_ jumped out at him. Maybe Riku was right. Maybe he didn’t _need_ to say anything. But Sora did.

He cupped the angel’s cheek and held his gaze as he said, “Everyone has a past, Riku.”

Riku drew in a sharp breath, trying to avert his gaze, but Sora wouldn’t let him. He made sure that Riku’s eyes stayed on him.

“I love you.”

He saw Riku beginning to crack, his protective neutrality withering under the strength of Sora’s resolve.

“I love _you_ ,” he repeated, using his free hand to gently place over one of Riku’s, lightly squeezing. He kissed the top of Riku’s forehead, each silvery brow, along his cheeks, the tip of his nose. All the while he just kept saying the same thing, “I love you.”

He would _remind_ Riku of this fact and he would keep reminding him until there was no more room for doubt.

By the time Sora pressed a light kiss to the corner of Riku’s mouth his angel was shaking and trying to angle himself away, to curl his body in on himself.

“I don’t deserve it,” he whispered.

Sora’s relief at hearing those words without them dripping in neutrality was immediately offset by just how pained Riku had sounded. He truly believed those words.

It wasn’t as if this was a new idea. Riku had stated plenty of times that Sora’s love was never meant to be his to begin with. That he was certain that Sora would move on.

It was in this intimate moment that Sora finally saw with full clarity just how steeped in insecurities Riku was. The guardian angel had always seemed so unassailable, so powerful. His earlier neutrality was just so that he could keep up propriety and do his job properly. At least, that had been Sora’s assumption. Clearly it was just masking something that ran much deeper.

Sora was angry. Not at Riku, but at the demon who had knocked him badly enough to bring old wounds to the surface. At the society that had given Riku these invisible scars. At himself for not realising sooner the gravity of the damage that Riku’s long existence had wrought upon him.

“Don’t say that,” Sora said fiercely, pulling Riku into a tight embrace. “Please Riku, don’t doubt my feelings anymore. And don’t doubt yourself. No one has the right to tell you that you aren’t good enough. I believe in you, and I like to think that you believe in me as well. But you also have to believe in yourself, okay?”

“Sora…” Riku’s voice cracked, choked up, and he reached out desperately, pressing tightly against him.

“Long ago, you told me to just be me,” Sora said, stroking his hand through Riku’s hair. “Well know that a fundamental part of me is you. I mean, would I even _exist_ without you?”

Sora still didn’t know exactly what guardian angels did, and Lea’s words were mystifying. From what he could glean, Sora should feel horrified that he was apparently a ‘celebrity’ caught up in some cosmic game of chess between light and dark, but he wasn’t worried. He had Riku to protect him, and Sora believed in Riku more than anything.

“We’re connected. I feel it here,” Sora said, pulling back to place his hand over his heart. The link that had been paralysed with cold dread was thawing, establishing that warm contentment between them once again. There was no way that Riku couldn’t feel it too. And if those dark feelings of dread and insecurities came from Riku himself, feeding into their connection, then Sora would combat it with all of the warmth and love he possessed.

He leant in and softly pressed his lips against Riku’s and slowly the angel’s trembling stilled, tension seeping out until he yielded fully to Sora.

When he pulled back it was the most gratifying thing in the world for Sora to see the trust reflected in Riku’s beautiful eyes. He maintained eye contact as he entwined their fingers.

“I want to take care of you, too.” Sora dimly remembered speaking those words to Riku before, many years ago. Only now he was in an actual position to do something about it. “I won’t let you leave feeling sad. You are one of the most impressive people I know, Riku. You deserve to be happy.”

He didn’t give Riku a single second to doubt his words, didn’t allow the angel the space to question his own self-worth. He traced soothing patterns over Riku’s skin and gently pushed him down until they were both led down on the sofa, pushed tightly together to avoid toppling over the edge.

Sora pressed feather light kisses to every inch of visible skin, each one warmer and more filled with love than the last. He ran his fingers through Riku’s short hair until his angel seemed to melt into the sofa. Sora murmured his words of love as if they were holy scripture.

In the final minutes of that particular Christmas, Sora pressed his ear against Riku’s chest and listened to the steady, powerful beat of his heart.

“Thank you, Sora.”

Sora felt the deep vibrations from Riku’s voice as it reverberated through his chest and he smiled.

“Feeling better?” he asked, pushing himself up so that he could look at Riku’s face.

“Yes,” he nodded. “I’m sorry for—”

Sora pressed his index finger against Riku’s lips. “No need for apologies.”

Riku hesitated, but he didn’t argue the point. “I love you,” he said instead.

Sora smiled. “I love you, too. Don’t you dare forget it,” he teased.

Sora felt the final few pieces clicking into place as Riku found himself once more. “Like you’d let me,” Riku said, any remaining tension subsumed by an amused exhale. Both were hyper aware of the day ultimately drawing to a close. “I’ll be home before you know it.”

Sora knew that Riku wasn’t referring to heaven, but here.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’ll be waiting.”

He leant down and they shared one final kiss that Christmas. The last thing Sora saw before Riku faded away was his angel’s smiling face.

x~x~x~x~x

That Christmas galvanised Sora’s purpose and he spent the next year putting in the work to bring to fruition plans that had long been playing on his mind. In the past he had made excuses: the timing was off, it wasn’t fair on Riku, he didn’t have the _perfect_ way of going about it… the excuses were endless.

But Sora refused to hesitate anymore. He was secure in his own feelings and wanted Riku to feel that very same security.

He enlisted Geppetto’s aid in his mission and over the coming months it was almost as if the universe itself conspired to make all of the pieces line up. Perhaps it was a sign, like some sort of cosmic blessing. Or maybe Sora was seeing what he wanted to see, grateful for any confidence boost he could get while in the throes of nervously excited planning.

It was a man called Isa who turned out to be the final piece of the puzzle. Sora had made acquaintance with the priest while he was planning the wedding for a very devout couple who had always wanted to wed in the grand cathedral in Radiant Garden and have the service conducted in Latin.

Isa was a stoic man with a presence as commanding as the historical cathedral itself. His piercing gaze was harder than the great stone arches that formed the ceiling of the cathedral, his demeanour as sure and steady as the huge stone pillars etched with intricate designs from centuries past.

He was an intimidating man and a noted scholar within the Church, Sora had been informed, and upon their first meeting Sora found most of the stories he had heard about the priest to be true. But the man was not without reason and they spent a rather pleasant afternoon working out the logistics of holding a wedding ceremony within the hallowed walls of his cathedral.

“I shall of course be conducting the ceremony,” Isa had said once a date had been agreed upon.

“You’re comfortable conducting the whole thing in Latin, right?” Sora clarified. His clients had been adamant on this point.

Isa merely looked at him as if he were a fool. “My command of Latin rivals that of ancient Romans themselves,” he said simply. “I could also conduct the ceremony in Koine Greek, Hebrew, and Coptic, to name but a few.”

“Just Latin is fine,” Sora assured him. It was hard not to be in awe of a man so singularly devoted to knowledge in pursuit of his beliefs. It also became clear that he was likely the man Sora had been looking for.

“A personal request,” Sora said, pulling out his gummiphone and bringing up a short passage. “You’d be surprised how few people actually know Latin,” he laughed as he spun his phone around to show the priest the display. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind recording yourself saying this, so that I can practice? This is something that I found a while ago and have always wanted to say properly.”

Isa’s striking eyes scanned the screen before him and he raised a curious blue brow. “Why this particular passage?” he asked after a moment.

Sora felt himself blushing slightly. “It conveys everything perfectly,” he said softly, “And I know it will mean a lot if I say it in Latin.”

Isa levelled him with such an intense gaze in response to that answer that for a mad moment, it was as if the priest could tell what his true intentions were.

“I see,” Isa said after a strange tension had taken root around them. “Very well.”

He held out his hand and Sora passed him the phone. And then he recorded himself saying the requested words.

“May this aid you in your endeavours,” Isa said once the deed was done.

Sora’s cheeks still felt hot but his eyes glinted with determination. “Thank you,” he said.

All that remained now was to put the final touches on his plans, and wait for Christmas.

x~x~x~x~x

“Welcome home!” Sora greeted enthusiastically as Riku appeared at midnight. He pulled the angel into a tight embrace that was swiftly returned.

“I’m home,” Riku murmured, although Sora could feel him glancing about them curiously. “Is this the Secret Place?”

“It’s almost unrecognisable, right?” Sora grinned, taking a step back and gesturing widely to the cave that Sora had spent the better part of a week transforming into their own little spot of luxury.

A combination of fairy lights and candles bathed the cave in a soft light, and colourful tapestries had been draped over most of the cave walls, save for any that held a lot of the doodles from islander kids past and present, including Sora himself. Riku had even drawn one years ago, and Sora had made sure not to cover that one either.

The usually hard ground was now plush with pillows and fluffy blankets, and in one corner stood a small but prettily decorated tree with the porcelain angel sat neatly atop it. Sora had even seen to the more practical side of things, having pushed a small dresser into the Secret Place with a selection of clothes, and there was a cooler full of drinks.

All in all he was proud of the setup he had created, and his sense of pride only swelled as he watched Riku admiring the cave decorations.

“It’s beautiful,” he said with a smile, gently placing his fingertips against one of the older cave drawings.

“I’m glad you like it,” Sora hummed.

Riku’s fingers flexed against the drawing before he pulled away and looked at Sora curiously. “What’s the occasion?” he asked.

“Why does there need to be an occasion?” Sora asked, but he was pretty sure the gentle lights surrounding them merely served to highlight the tell-tale rosiness of his cheeks.

“So there isn’t an occasion?” Riku asked, raising a sceptical brow at his lover.

Sora’s pulse picked up, a nervous rhythm thrumming through his entire being and, judging from the way Riku’s look of curiosity intensified, his angel could feel it too.

“Well, it’s not like there’s not necessarily no occasion,” Sora replied, scratching the back of his neck.

“Suspicious,” Riku murmured, narrowing his eyes playfully as he stalked towards Sora.

“Am not!” Sora protested uselessly, backing away from the prowling angel until he felt a cloth covered stone wall at his back.

With nowhere else for him to run Sora very quickly found himself boxed in by Riku, who looked down at him with burning curiosity. In that moment Riku seemed to tower over him, a great pillar of inquisitiveness as he placed a hand over Sora’s rapidly beating heart. He hummed thoughtfully, the sound low and deep and doing absolutely nothing to help Sora calm down.

Absent any other ideas, and because Sora never needed an excuse to kiss his angel, he curled his palm around the back of Riku’s neck and leant up to seal their lips together. Riku hummed again, a breathier sound this time, as Sora lightly ran his tongue along the seam of his lips.

“Trying to distract me?” he murmured, not pulling back and so Sora felt those words brushing against his lips.

“Is it working?” he asked in return.

Warm affection claimed him as he felt one of Riku’s amused exhales against his mouth. That was all the response Sora needed and he swiftly deepened the kiss, pushing his body against Riku’s own and delighting in how perfectly they fit together.

It wasn’t long before they fell to the pillowed floor. Riku was a wonderful weight above him and Sora shivered as he watched the hypnotising flex of Riku’s biceps as the angel lowered himself to press them closer together. Riku dipped his head down, brushing his lips against Sora’s neck before laying his head above Sora’s chest, listening to his heartbeat.

“Now I’m even more curious,” he murmured. He peered up and into Sora’s eyes, as if he could divine the intent behind this particular Christmas through just a look.

“Then I’ll just have to put my all into distracting you,” Sora replied, grinning roguishly as he curled his fingers into Riku’s hair and pulled him up into a searing kiss.

Riku was a lot more reticent to fall to such distractions than he usually was. At first Sora chalked it up to curiosity, but he had spent so long figuring out the perfect timing that there was no way he would confess his plans just a few hours before the allotted hour. So he was all too happy to engage Riku’s tongue in a playful battle for dominance and lean into the heat that licked through his body when Riku’s hips bore down against his.

Riku proved so capable of providing distractions of his own that it took Sora a few long minutes to realise that there was something more going on. Despite loving embrace and eager hands, there was a stoicism laced within his angel’s movements. Riku’s touch intended to deflect as much as please, his kisses a means to divert attention from lingering doubts.

Sora realised then what his angel needed. Last year’s events hung as a pale spectre around Riku and Sora set about causing the doubts to dissipate. He was intently attuned to all of Riku’s reactions to his every touch, every stroke, every kiss. Riku met him each time, pushing, shrouding his resistance with pleasured responses. Sora wasn’t sure if Riku was doing this consciously or not but he kept up his affectionate assault, fingers gently tugging at silver strands, teeth lightly nipping at a full bottom lip, and gradually the slight tension in Riku’s muscles seeped out.

He licked his way into Riku’s mouth and swallowed the resultant sigh of pleasure and all at once the doubts gave way. It was just the two of them in this intimate moment. This time when he pushed he felt Riku yield. The way those beautiful gemlike eyes regarded him with such open trust was a very powerful thing indeed.

It was a fact not lost upon Sora that, should Riku desire it, he could crush him in mere seconds and not even break a sweat while doing so. Raw power wrapped around every sinew under perfect marble skin and yet Sora’s touch elicited a gorgeous pink flush edged with goosebumps. Riku’s submission was a cherished and wholly arousing thing that Sora was endlessly grateful for.

He kept hold of Riku’s gaze and didn’t let those eyes leave him for one single second that evening. Even when Riku was flushed and gasping Sora’s name in supplication, Sora made sure that he maintained eye contact.

Riku’s trust was not misplaced, and Sora relished the hours he took to impress this fact upon his beloved angel.

xxxxx

Sora awoke the next day during the late morning. He smiled as he felt Riku’s pulse beat into his back and he leant back into his angel’s heat.

“Good morning,” Riku greeted him, nuzzling his neck affectionately.

“Morning,” he returned, feeling his pulse pick up at the thought of what he would be doing in just a few short hours.

Riku’s strong arms squeezed him a little tighter as if in response to the nervous excitement thrumming through his veins. Before Riku could begin his questioning again Sora spun around in those arms and pressed a warm kiss to Riku’s lips.

“Wanna go for a swim?” he asked. Despite it being winter, the sea surrounding Destiny Islands was always perfect for swimming in year-round.

Riku considered the question. “Do I have to put on swimwear?” he asked.

Sora laughed. Since Riku had transitioned to wearing mostly human clothes during Christmas, Sora had learnt of his rather passionate stance towards underwear: it was too constraining and uncomfortable and to be avoided at all costs. Logically, this extended to swimwear as well.

Sora was pretty sure that his angel going commando would never cease to be hot. And he was hardly going to be the one to tell Riku to put clothes _on_ when he was such a glorious sight when naked. He was only a man, after all.

“Mid-morning skinny-dipping it is then,” he grinned, disentangling himself from his lover.

It was a day full of lazy island delights. The water sparkled under the sun’s rays as they splashed around. They swam around the entire play island, turning it into a race at some point that Riku won. Sora suspected that Riku’s show of breathlessness after his victory was more a means to make Sora feel a little better about the loss and not because Riku had actually expended that amount of energy.

Sora clambered up a tree and retrieved coconuts for them to drink the milk from. They built a sandman. Everything was simple and uncomplicated, the perfect day for carefree smiles and cheerful laughter. The perfect day to lie on the sand and murmur loving words brighter than the sun itself. If only Sora had the means to bottle up Riku’s laughter. It was such a wonderful sound, healing in every way, a sound that could banish the deepest darkness.

But as the sun began to dip below the horizon and the island was steadily bathed in the golden orange glow of sunset, Sora was ready to begin. They had briefly retired back to the cave for a change of clothes, vest tops and shorts exchanged for loose linen shirts and smart but breathable trousers.

Riku had stopped questioning the reasoning for anything Sora was doing this Christmas, contentedly going along with the flow, and so he easily followed Sora when he linked their hands together and led them back out onto their little island.

The sky was a painting of rich oranges and deep purples as the sun continued its descent and, all according to plan, as Sora approached the short pier a neat row of torches either side of it had been lit. The pier itself was now home to a table and two chairs, a cooler housing a bottle of champagne, and two cloche-covered plates.

Sora couldn’t have been happier at the set-up, relieved that everything had been able to be set up in the time he had led Riku back to the cave. The latter sucked in a breath, looking at the scene with a look of amazement and surprise on his features.

“Sora,” he murmured.

“Do you like it?” Sora chirped.

“This is amazing. I…” And no amount of planning his words in advance seemed to be able to help the angel now, reduced to speechlessness. He instead pulled Sora against him and dipped his head down to kiss him in lieu of words.

Sora couldn’t help a bright smile from pulling the corners of his lips up under the wonderful pressure of Riku’s own lips, and he laughed breathlessly as Riku planted kisses along his dimples and cheeks before pulling away with eyes bright with warmth and love.

“Shall we?” Sora grinned, offering his arm up to Riku, who linked his arm through it immediately.

He bowed deeply as he pulled one of the chairs out for Riku and set about pouring champagne into the provided flutes with all the flair he could muster, preening under Riku’s unrestrained delight at the whole thing. It was saccharine and perhaps a little silly, especially when Sora felt the need to twirl around grandly as he lifted the cloches from their plates to reveal the meal underneath, but Riku’s eye roll was so affectionate as to render it just another form of praise.

“You spoil me,” Riku said with a fond shake of his head.

“You just deserve nice things,” Sora replied. “You do so much for me so I want to do things for you as well.”

Riku gazed upon him as if he were something truly astonishing. “In all of my years, there has never been anyone like you. Honestly Sora, all of this is just…” He bit his lip against emotions he was ill equipped to deal with. “I don’t know what I’ve done to be so blessed,” he murmured.

“You were you,” Sora replied with a smile. “And I love everything about you.”

“I love you, too, Sora. To think that my recklessness all those years ago would have led to this…” Riku was still stunned, unused to such grand gestures exclusively in his honour. Being a guardian angel was a thankless task; humans went through life without even knowing they were there. They asked for nothing in return. Sora was just lucky to have met his, and he would do whatever he could to make Riku see how loved and appreciated he truly was.

Sora picked up his champagne flute and held it up in a toast. “To rule breaking!”

Riku seemed stuck between various responses to that and in the end he let out his breathy exhale of amusement, shaking his head. But he still reached for his own flute and lightly clinked it against Sora’s.

“To rule breaking.”

Conversation between them was easy as they dined beneath the stars, the firelight from the torches casting dancing shadows around them. Soon plates were empty and glasses had been drained multiple times. The pleasant buzz of the champagne served to take the edge off of what Sora planned on doing next.

He had wanted them to spend a blissful Christmas together and had deliberately waited until just a few hours of the day remained. If things went the way he hoped they would, these hours would be spent in perfect celebration. If not, then at least it hadn’t tainted the majority of the day.

“You asked me what the occasion was,” Sora said once there was a natural lull in the conversation. Riku looked at him curiously and Sora could swear starlight was reflected in those beautiful eyes. He swallowed nervously and stood up, his pulse rocketing in mere seconds.

Sora felt the familiar tug, more of a caress this time as it worked to soothe over the erratic beating of nerves. He smiled at Riku gratefully and Riku patiently waited for Sora to say his piece.

When Sora got down on one knee before him, though, his eyes widened and a shocked gasp escaped his lips. “S-Sora…” he stuttered, a confusing mix of shock, disapproval, elation, and sheer disbelief.

Sora just steeled himself and reached into his pocket, presenting a ring to Riku. Geppetto had made it, working to Sora’s specifications and creating something truly beautiful and unique. It was a neat silver band with tiny turquoise gemstones set into it, each one glittering as Sora held it up to his angel. And then he took a deep breath and said the words he had rehearsed so diligently for this very moment.

 _“_ _Angele Dei, qui custos es mei, me tibi commissum pietate superna; Hodie, Hac nocte illumina, custodi, rege et guberna. Amen.”_

Riku’s mouth worked uselessly absent his mind to dictate words for him, overwhelmed by it all. His eyes shone with tears and Sora prayed that they were happy ones. When Riku shakily reached out and took the proffered ring, a messy smile on his lips, he was relieved to know that they were. He watched as Riku lightly ran his finger along the inscription on the inside of the ring: _Dearly Beloved_.

Sora had heard those two words more times than he could count. In his line of work, they were common. And yet each time he heard them, without fail, he would think of Riku. So it seemed fitting that those were the words etched onto the ring, Riku’s ring, if the angel accepted it.

“I know we can’t actually get married,” Sora said, taking hold of Riku’s free hand to keep it from shaking too badly. “But I want this to be a symbol of my love for you. The instant we met I knew that you were the only one for me, Riku. I commit myself to you. If you ever feel alone, or you doubt yourself, or you don’t trust in what we have, I hope you can look at that ring and realise the truth: that I love you so much and will support you in any way I can. Because you are the most wonderful and wondrous person I’ve had the joy of meeting. I am honoured to have you as my guardian angel, as my friend, as my lover… so please believe in me. I want you for a lifetime.”

Riku actually was crying at this point, crystal tears sliding down his cheeks as he turned the ring over in his hand. He carefully pulled his other out of Sora’s so that he could slip it onto his ring finger, and Sora felt like his heart would burst at the sight.

“You’re ridiculous,” Riku said through his tears, dropping down from his chair to join Sora on his knees, pulling him into a warm embrace. “I love you so much,” he cried into his shoulder and, because Sora always would be a sap, his own happy tears soon followed.

Riku was too choked up to voice his half-formed thoughts properly. The one that made it out first, in a voice laden with emotion and yet a laugh wrapped itself around the words, was, “Since when can you speak Latin?”

“Oh, um, I just know that sentence,” Sora admitted sheepishly, wrapping his arms tighter around Riku.

“Your pronunciation was perfect,” he marvelled.

Sora positively glowed. “I had some help, but I’m glad it went down so well.”

“I never stood a chance,” Riku murmured against him. Sora wasn’t entirely sure Riku was referring to his proposal.

He didn’t dwell on that for long because in the next instant Riku’s hands cupped his cheeks and he was kissing him, deep and full of unadulterated affection.

When Riku’s lips eventually left his own, Sora was dazed in the best of ways. Riku was admiring his new ring, contemplating something, and then his attention was squarely back on Sora. The way the corner of Riku’s mouth quirked upwards, concealing a secret about to be revealed, drew Sora in completely.

The human watched in fascination as flames far brighter than those of the torches twisted through the night air, coiling decisively into a sight that Sora had only ever seen once before, years ago. Riku’s wings were even more impressive than Sora remembered, a gorgeous yet intimidating expanse of fiery feathers of light. Riku flexed them out until they reached their extraordinary wingspan and Sora was rendered speechless at the majesty of the sight.

Riku closed his eyes for a moment and in the next he curled his left wing inwards towards himself. When he next opened his eyes it was so that he could pluck one of the fiery feathers out from the wing. Riku barely flinched but Sora gasped as he saw the feather come away, and then Riku was turning it over in his fingers thoughtfully.

“Watch closely,” Riku said softly. As if Sora needed the instruction; he was utterly transfixed on everything Riku was doing.

Riku tucked his wings behind him so that they weren’t quite so imposing. He saw Riku’s face twitch with the action and he couldn’t help but wonder at how those wings affected Riku. He knew they were sensitive, he knew what sort of response was elicited from touching the marks, but was it hard for Riku to maintain them like this right now? Did it hurt? Did it feel good?

Ultimately these weren’t questions Sora was likely going to obtain any quick answers to, but they fell from his mind as he watched Riku hold the feather he had plucked horizontally between both of his hands. The feather glowed even brighter then, as if molten, and Sora was totally enthralled as the feather melted into a puddle of light between Riku’s hands.

Riku began to weave this liquid light through his fingers, his movements fluid and purposeful. Riku twisted and bent the light into a perfect circle under his expert ministrations. The angel’s expression was one of relaxed concentration. The way Riku was able to manoeuvre the light like that was captivating and before long a ring of pure light had been forged before his very eyes.

Riku held the ring in the palm of his hand once he was done. Sora stared at it, his mind not quite able to comprehend the way Riku had been able to weave light like that into something new.

Riku gently took Sora’s left hand and held the ring up to it. Sora’s breath caught in his throat as Riku asked, “May I?”

Sora nodded wordlessly, unable to do much of anything else apart from stare, transfixed, as Riku carefully slid the band of light onto his ring finger. His happy tears from earlier had barely subsided and already they were back again as he held his hand up and admired the ring Riku had made for him.

A ring of light. Riku’s light.

Sora could feel a comforting warmth emanating from the ring and if he focused, there was a subtle pulsing to it that washed over his heart like soft waves. The sensations were faint, just the merest fraction of his beloved, but this was a tangible part of Riku that had been offered freely. Something that Sora could look at throughout the year, through good times and bad, and know that his angel was right with him.

“Know that I am always with you,” Riku said softly, linking the fingers of his left hand with Sora’s and turning their hands around so that both of their new rings glinted under the stars.

Sora shifted, pressing closer to Riku and burying his face into his angel’s shoulder. Riku, in turn, wrapped his strong arms around Sora and then slowly, carefully, wrapped his wings around the two of them.

That moment, holding each other on the shores of Destiny Islands with the stars as their witnesses and cocooned in resplendent wings of light, became one of Sora’s most cherished memories.

It was a memory kept close to his heart for the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? I _didn't_ leave it on a cliffhanger for once? Goodness these really are strange times. 
> 
> What Sora said to Riku in Latin: "Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom his love commits me here; ever this day, night be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen."
> 
> I hope to see you in the next chapter! And comments are the greatest gift ^_^
> 
> May your lives be blessed with bountiful SoRiku goodness~


	6. Justice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres._
> 
> _Love never fails._
> 
> _(1 Corinthians 13:4-8)_

Although they couldn’t get married in the traditional sense, Sora still spent the next year planning the perfect honeymoon for himself and Riku. Every time he glanced down at his hand and saw his gorgeous ring of light shining proudly back at him, Sora’s heart swelled.

He had a wealth of knowledge on the subject, plenty of married friends and clients he could go to for yet more advice, and a whole world out there waiting to greet them. He would have liked to make the decision with Riku, but the thought hadn’t occurred to him until after Christmas and he was pretty certain that, were he to actually ask for Riku’s opinion, he would just default to Sora’s pick.

And that was why, as the clock ticked past midnight and into Christmas Day, Riku found himself in the luxurious honeymoon suite of a five-star hotel in the Kingdom of Corona.

The small kingdom, that Sora had come to learn was now a constitutional monarchy, seemed to offer the best of everything: wide expansive countryside to explore, a rich history, tours around the actual palace itself, and festivals that were famous the world over.

“Happy anniversary!” Sora cheered, pulling Riku in for a kiss. Being with Riku again always made Sora feel invincible, a feeling which on this happy occasion meant he got far too overconfident in his own abilities and attempted to dip Riku down like in grand old romance films.

Unsurprisingly their difference in height, coupled with the fact that Riku’s muscles absolutely weren’t for show, meaning that the angel was far heavier than his feather-like majesty would otherwise imply, meant that the pair of them crashed rather inelegantly to the carpeted floor.

Sora ended up splayed atop Riku, who really had ended up breaking his fall. His head lay against his chest, and just as Sora was making a mental note to hit the gym and pump some serious iron so that he could try this again next year and actually succeed, Riku laughed.

He wrapped his arms tight around Sora and he laughed, bright and loud.

“Maybe don’t make a habit of that particular greeting,” he said, weaving the words into his laughter.

Sora pouted, faking offense. “I was trying to be romantic!”

“By drop-tackling me to the floor?” Riku asked, raising an amused eyebrow at him.

Sarcastic bastard. God Sora loved him so much.

“I give you a ring and suddenly you’re all demands. ‘Don’t drop me on the floor’ this and, ‘You’re heavy get off of me’ that. See if you get any chocolate strawberries now,” he joked.

“I didn’t tell you to get off of me.”

Sora wondered how Riku somehow managed to floor him with that response when they were already very much on the floor in the first place.

A rush of heat coursed through Sora’s body as Riku’s lips quirked up at his dumfounded silence.

“So, where are we this year?” Riku asked, sliding one of his hands up Sora’s back and tangling his fingers in spiky brunette hair.

“The Kingdom of Corona,” Sora replied, sighing happily as Riku pressed a light kiss to his forehead.

“And the occasion?” he hummed.

“Honeymoon,” Sora said, shifting slightly atop Riku so that he could run his hands along his waist.

“Honeymoon?”

Sora looked up at the hesitancy in Riku’s tone and sure enough, the angel was biting his lip pensively.

“Riku?” he asked, but Riku suddenly seemed very distracted as he glanced around their hotel room. They currently occupied the floor of the comfortable living room area, all plush sofas and minimalist grace. A table laden with deserts and a cooler cradling a bottle of champagne laid in front of the large floor-to-ceiling window that afforded spectacular views of the kingdom that lay beyond.

A decorative arch opened onto the bedroom just beyond the living room, the current angle allowing Riku a view of the lavish bed strewn with rose petals. Not visible was the door that led from that room into the en-suite bathroom, a grand place of marble floors and backlit pearl-edged mirrors, and sporting a hot tub that Sora was positively giddy to try out.

“You didn’t have to do this…” Riku breathed, his eyes still tracing the room.

Riku was clearly fretting about what this must have cost, both from a monetary perspective and also the time that Sora had sunk into all of this. The implication, of course, was that Riku didn’t think he was worth this level of effort. But Sora had foreseen this reaction and moved to capture his angel’s lips in a soft kiss.

“I wanted to do it,” Sora replied, nuzzling his cheek. “It’s for both of us; it’s my honeymoon too,” he chuckled lightly.

“Even though we can’t actually get married?”

It was a genuine question tinged with disappointment. Disappointment that they couldn’t really wed, disappointment that it was something Riku couldn’t give him. But Sora knew all of this, and he knew that Riku was probably running over the benefits of Sora taking a human lover over him in that moment. Sora reached for Riku’s left hand and saw that he was still wearing the ring, and he lightly pressed a kiss to Riku’s knuckles.

Regardless of what Riku’s head may have said, what his heart wanted was clear.

“Hmm… well we have rings,” Sora reasoned. “And a honeymoon suite in a fancy foreign land. So let’s exchange vows!”

The idea had come to him quite suddenly, out of his mouth before Sora really had a chance to think about it. But in the few seconds it took for him to catch up with his own proposal, he found himself rather taken with the idea.

“We’re doing this out of order,” Riku pointed out, but he didn’t outright shoot down the idea. Instead, his own gaze sought the band of light that Sora proudly wore on his own ring finger and he smiled.

“Does it matter? C’mon Riku,” Sora gently urged, linking their fingers together. “Where would we do it? Would you like it to be in a church? A cathedral? Oh, maybe outside somewhere…” It was hard not to get swept away with planning the perfect location for their dream wedding when Sora’s entire job revolved around it.

“I don’t need a fancy ceremony, I just need you,” Riku responded. And god if that wasn’t the sweetest and sexiest way for Riku to deem his profession wholly obsolete.

“Like this then,” Sora murmured, sliding down Riku’s body. He gently took hold of his right foot and lifted it, pressing a kiss to the inside of Riku’s ankle. “Shall I begin?” he asked.

“Sora,” Riku gasped, watching with half-lidded eyes as Sora kissed a steady trail of kisses up his calf.

“I, Sora, take you, Riku, to be my husband,” he purred, hooking his fingers under the crook of Riku’s knee while his lips caressed every centimetre of skin they came across.

Riku’s head fell back, his eyes closed as a rushed breath of Latin escaped his lips. _“Domine, exaudi orationem meam, et clamor meus ad te veniat…”_ His eyes fluttered open as Sora ran his fingers over his left foot this time, lavishing him with kisses as he worked up his leg. Riku swallowed and Sora could feel the light tremors of Riku’s body under his lips.

“I, Riku, take thee, Sora, to be… to be my husband.”

Sora closed his eyes against the heat that washed over him at the words. He curled his hands under Riku’s thighs, massaging the skin, groaning softly as Riku parted them wider for him.

“With my body I honour you, all that I am I give to you.” His breath was hot against Riku’s inner thigh as he kissed, teasingly licked, lost himself in Riku’s sweet sounds as he bit into the soft flesh there.

“With my body I worship thee,” Riku replied, fisting his hands in Sora’s hair and keening low in his throat as Sora laid reverence everywhere but the place that rapidly demanded such attention. He made a sound that bordered a sob as Sora skipped over the angel’s arousal in order to kiss a line up his abdomen and dip his tongue into his belly button.

“I vow to always cherish you. I haven’t always done so in the past, but you make me want to be the best version of me that I can be.” Kissing his way over defined abdominals, gasping out a breath of laughter as Riku impatiently rolled his hips up and rubbed himself against Sora’s thigh.

Riku’s voice had an exquisite roughness to it as he said, “I vow to always protect you. Know that in me you have someone you can rely on.”

Sora trailed his kisses along Riku’s pectorals, laving his tongue over a hardened nipple and not stopping until Riku’s breathing was utterly ragged. The angel took Sora’s hips in his hands and ground the two of them together. Sora moaned at the friction but refused to be dissuaded from his task and immediately moved to pay the same keen attention to Riku’s other nipple.

“I vow to be your rock,” he promised, his own voice feeling rather wrecked as a potent mix of love and arousal filled him fit to bursting. “A source of security that you can always trust in.”

“Home is wherever you are,” Riku panted, needy, affectionate, “I vow that I shall, _ah_ , always return to you.”

Sora dropped himself lower, the addicting friction between their lower bodies increasing, their chests touching. The frenzied beating of their hearts was in tune and Sora closed his eyes for a moment, relishing in the rhythm that they created together.

“My heart beats because of you,” he said.

“And my heart beats for you,” Riku returned.

Sora completed his torturous ascent up Riku’s body, nipping and licking at his neck, sucking a mark into one of his shoulders, before finally claiming the lips he loved so much.

Sora had heard many couples exchange their vows over the years, but he hadn’t allowed himself to think of his own. It seemed presumptuous, or even dangerous, to do so. Placing hopes in a lofty place that could never be reached. But that just meant that the words he spoke now were direct from the heart. Perhaps not perfect in terms of them being vows that would go down in history as great poetry, but they were certainly perfect in their raw authenticity.

“S-Sora,” Riku gasped against his mouth, his body a mass of pure sensation after Sora had so thoroughly undone him with his mouth, his fingers, his words. “You’ve unlocked parts of myself that I didn’t even know existed,” he said, his hands squeezing Sora’s hips, running up his back, delighting in touching every inch of heated skin he could reach. “And I will do everything I can to unlock new experiences for you so that you may keep reaching even greater heights and exceed even your own vast potential. I vow to be your guiding key.”

His face mirrored exactly how Sora felt: flushed, aroused, and so ridiculously in love. Sora couldn’t take it anymore, pulling back so that he could place one of Riku’s legs over his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to the crook of Riku’s knee as he brought two fingers up to his lover’s entrance.

Both of their cocks were leaking already but Sora loved doing this almost as much as Riku loved him doing it. Watching Riku’s expression melt into one of pure bliss as Sora thrust his fingers inside, feeling the way he clenched around them, hearing the soft exalted moans of his name… it was a profoundly satisfying thing that got him so hot his own blood felt like molten lava beneath his skin.

“Riku,” he managed, a miracle that he could still be so coherent. “From the beginning, I always knew that you were for me. You are my soul mate, the very reason that I breathe—figuratively and literally. I vow to be the man that you deserve.”

Riku was writhing atop his fingers, the tremors in his body crying out for Sora’s, as Sora’s own did to Riku’s. He withdrew his fingers and lined himself up, then surged forward into the welcoming heat of consummation.

Riku was right: they had gone about this in entirely the wrong order and yet it felt _right_. As he thrust deeper, establishing a pace that drove the both of them wild, Riku’s own hips meeting him thrust for thrust as they crashed their mouths together, Sora wouldn’t have had it any other way.

_For better, for worse._

They didn’t need neatly pressed tuxedos and vibrant bouquets. An orchestra wouldn’t have sounded nearly as beautiful as the symphony of sound the two of them created together, a slick rhythm punctuated by gasps and moans, all underscored by their hearts beating in tune.

_For richer, for poorer._

With Riku he felt whole, an all-encompassing completeness that was impossible with anybody else. He moaned into their kiss as he felt Riku’s nails dragging down his back, seeking some sort of purchase against the intense pleasure. Sora thrust harder, felt the nails dig deeper, hoping that his entire back would become a canvas of scratch marks in yet another testament to their claim on each other.

_In sickness, and in health._

He wanted to stay like this forever, in this intimate embrace, their promises sustaining them until the end of time itself. But Riku was squeezing around him so perfectly, drawing him higher, a divine pleasure that Sora was powerless against. He leant into the intoxicating build of heat, Riku’s cries serving to add fuel to the already raging fire, but still Sora wanted more, wanted to push it to new heights before burning out.

_Until death—_

“F-For a lifetime,” he said, voice rough. “I love you, s-so fucking much.” His movements had descended into something jerky, an unpredictable rhythm that pounded into his lover, striking his sweet spot, notching his voice higher. Sora moaned, falling to Riku’s ear as he breathed out a wrecked, “ _I do._ ”

Riku moaned at those words, his body arching off the carpet and taking Sora in impossibly deep. He was on the edge, Sora knew, as was he. But he pushed it just a little further, one last purposeful jerk into that welcoming heat that had Riku throwing his head back and blessing him with a pleasure-filled scream of, “I do!”

Sora felt Riku release, his hot pleasure spurting between them as his body tensed with waves of sensation, intent on dragging Sora over the edge with him. And just like that Sora unravelled, spilling deep within Riku as his angel screamed I do over and over, until Sora was certain that the heavens themselves could hear and that they would be left in no doubt as to whom Riku belonged.

xxxxx

Sora only ended up getting a few hours of sleep, determined as he was to wake up early and make the most of their honeymoon time together. A pleasant lethargy had seeped into his bones and he smiled as Riku pressed a soft kiss to the back of his neck.

“You’re up early,” he murmured.

“Well we have a full day ahead,” Sora replied, his voice still thick with sleep.

Honestly it would have been easy to curl back up in his angel’s warm embrace and fall right back to sleep. It was also highly tempting, once wakefulness had claimed him a little more, for Sora to drag Riku back into the hot tub for round… god he’d lost count. Let it not be said that they hadn’t taken full advantage of this room.

But Sora wanted to explore this kingdom with Riku and showed admirable restraint by showering on his own as opposed to insisting that Riku join him. Such an insistence could have easily cost them a couple of hours, so it was better to be safe about it.

They enjoyed a traditional Coronan breakfast courtesy of room service before venturing outside. Corona was a place blessed with lush greenery that proliferated in beautiful forests beyond the kingdom proper. They strolled through cobbled streets and over an impressive stone bridge and spent their morning exploring these forests, admiring the wildflowers that grew despite the winter months.

At some point Riku stumbled upon a sort of cave entrance and Sora, intrepid explorer that he was, insisted on investigating the place.

About fifteen minutes into the tunnel exploration Sora’s stomach began growling fiercely, the sound of his hunger echoing off of the walls.

“Is this the end for our brave adventurer?” Sora asked dramatically. “Succumbing to hunger, he cannot possibly go on!”

“Giving up already?” Riku asked, shaking his head at his lover’s (husband’s?) antics. “Come on Sora. I thought you were stronger than that.”

Sora grinned. “Such words of confidence from our brave adventurer’s beloved fills him with strength anew!”

Riku snorted. “Okay brave adventurer, use that strength to navigate your way out of these tunnels.”

“Ah, but I am not truly at one-hundred per cent!” Sora cried as his tummy rumbles once more made themselves known. “Perhaps a kiss from my beloved could sustain me?”

He fluttered his eyelashes at Riku who actually laughed a little at that.

“Your beloved thinks that kisses have no nutritional value and therefore cannot sustain you in any meaningful way,” he said, lips turning up into a smirk at Sora’s gasp.

“Kisses sustain a man in the _most_ meaningful way!” Sora argued.

“I’m an angel,” Riku replied simply, turning on his heel and making his way down one of the tunnels.

“Oh, the betrayal!” Sora exclaimed, rushing after Riku. “And on _this_ day of all days! Our honeymoon! Our anniversary! Christmas day itself! It’s a triple betrayal!”

Sora was still whining about his lack of kisses when they eventually emerged into another area of woodland, but he gasped as he saw the short dirt trail leading to a quaintly named tavern called The Snuggly Duckling.

“Aw, Riku,” Sora said, pretending to wipe a tear from his eye, “You led us to a place with food. It’s a miracle!”

“No, I definitely did this by mistake,” Riku answered, matter-of-fact as always. The way he looked at the tavern curiously led Sora to think that Riku hadn’t actually meant to take them here, but this just caused Sora to burst out laughing.

“Clearly instinct guided you here. You do love me after all!”

“More than words can express,” Riku said, leaning down and finally giving Sora his asked-for kiss. “Now, let’s get you something to eat.”

Sora chuckled softly, cupping Riku’s cheek. “You’ve given me all the sustenance that I require.”

Honestly that would have been an incredibly smooth and sexy line if Sora’s stomach didn’t decide to roar its discontent at that exact moment.

Riku just raised his eyebrow, his exhalation of amusement ghosting over Sora’s lips. “Just on the slight chance that turns out to be false, I still say we get lunch.”

The Snuggly Duckling turned out to be a cosy little pub with quite the extensive menu. They ordered a selection of dishes to share, working their way through some more of this foreign cuisine to the tune of happy patrons and an old gentleman playing his accordion on a small raised platform singing about dreams. It was the perfect atmosphere to relax and unwind for a little bit.

Riku, wisely, picked up one of the maps of the area that were sat atop the bar counter so that they could navigate their way back to the main expanse of the kingdom without any accidental cave detours.

They toured the palace in the afternoon. Sora marvelled at the opulence of it all while Riku took a particular interest in the architecture and art pieces. There were palace representatives placed at regular intervals, happy to dispense historical knowledge to those so inclined. Riku ended up conversing with a woman stood near a painting of a beautiful young woman with magnificent golden hair that was so long, Sora was certain the artist had taken quite a few liberties in depicting it. Sora looked to the little gold plate sat beneath it:

**_Portrait of Princess Rapunzel, 1783_ **

“You were talking to her for a while,” Sora commented when Riku joined him once more.

“I wanted to see how history remembers her,” Riku said, slipping his hand into Sora’s and giving it a light squeeze.

“The princess?”

“Yes. I know the guardian angel who watched over her, so I was curious to see if his stories about her were at all mirrored so many centuries after the fact.”

Sora looked back at the portrait. The princess also had a guardian angel… He was reminded of that time back in the Traverse Town art gallery, when Riku had told him of Naminé. It was difficult for Sora to wrap his head around the fact that these old paintings linked back to someone who was very much real and alive so many years ago. He knew it on a logical level, of course, but Riku was tangible proof of the fact that everything was connected.

“And? Is she being remembered as she was?” he asked.

Riku hummed. “I’m not sure if I should really say.” He took a few long moments to mull something over, and then he was leaning in closer to Sora in a conspiratorial manner as if he was about to share some great secret. “Her hair is wrong,” he whispered. “She was actually a brunette.”

“Huh?” Sora’s eyes widened, looking at all of the paintings that depicted a very much _blonde_ princess. “But… how can you get something like that wrong?”

“There are many reasons, I suppose,” Riku mused. “History has a way of mythologising people, oftentimes to unrecognisable degrees. I’m not sure I’d call it ‘wrong’, necessarily… My colleague’s memories of the princess at the time are just as valuable as how her people would like to think of her now.”

Sora kind of understood what Riku was getting at, but a part of him couldn’t help but think that it was sad as well. To be remembered incorrectly… but was there even a correct way to do so? The fact was that she _was_ remembered. The ways in which she was remembered differed: some first-hand accounts, some through stories and legends and artefacts passed down through the ages. He stole a glance at Riku.

_How would Riku remember him?_

He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about the day they would one day part from each other, especially when they still had a lifetime together first.

They continued in the palace a while longer before moving on to explore the more urban areas of the kingdom, strolling along the wharf, checking out the neat boutique shops.

By dusk they made their way to the town square, where colourful mosaics covered the walls and the stone slabs beneath their feet. Corona’s symbol was the sun, and neat blue bunting flags emblazoned with crystal white suns that almost resembled snowflakes were strung above the square. Festive lights lit up the area and a live orchestra played a jaunty tune as townsfolk and tourists alike danced around the square.

The whole atmosphere was fun and festive and the perfect way to celebrate Christmas, so even though Sora still had woeful dancing skills he held his hand out to Riku and bowed low.

“May I have this dance?” he asked.

Riku smiled and bowed in return before placing his hand within Sora’s. “I would be honoured.”

They leapt into the fray of dancing couples, trying to pick up the moves as quickly as possible. They were relatively simple, a lot of twirling and arm linking and fist pumping, and a lot of people were putting their own spin on it anyway. Fun was really the main consideration, and soon their own happy cheers and hollers joined in with everyone else’s.

The violinist suddenly started a distinctive trill and everyone started clapping. Sora looked around them and saw that everyone was now spinning, so he led Riku in a spin as well and then as if everyone else was channelling the same dancing hive mind that Sora wasn’t privy to, one partner, usually the stronger looking one, placed their hands on their partner’s waist, lifted them up, and swung them around.

And then they all resumed the earlier steps.

“Uh,” Sora blinked, now completely out of step with everything else that was going on.

“Allow me,” Riku said, drawing Sora in by his waist and leading them around the square, effortlessly picking the flow back up.

“You can dance?” Sora asked, leaning his cheek against Riku’s shoulder and letting him take complete control of their waltz around the square.

“I can manage something this simple.”

Sora chuckled, unsure if that was a veiled insult or not. Riku spun him outwards, they clapped in time, they stomped their feet. And then the violin began its trill again. Sora looked up to see Riku’s eyes glittering and excitement notching the corners of his mouth upwards. In the next moment, his hands dropped to Sora’s waist.

“Woah, Riku, wait a—”

And then Sora felt like he was flying. Just for a moment, a split-second in which he was in the air and able to see the happy faces in the crowd and the other dancers in the square with startling clarity. He heard the way people gasped. Riku deftly caught him as he fell back to the square below, spinning him once before dipping him down low and pressing a kiss to his lips.

Sora’s pulse was pounding in his ears but he still heard the way people had begun cheering around them.

“ _That’s_ how you do it,” Riku murmured, pulling back with a little satisfied smirk.

“Aw, crap. And here I was hoping you’d forgotten about my failure of a dip kiss,” Sora replied, not feeling the slightest bit precarious in Riku’s arms despite being tilted back at such an angle. “Just so I definitely know for next time, show me once more?”

Riku smiled and brought their lips together once again as Sora wrapped his arms around his angel’s neck. This time they didn’t break apart until air became an absolutely necessity.

“Merry Christmas.”

“And a happy anniversary.”

x~x~x~x~x

Travelling for Christmas became more of a regular occurrence. They tended to alternate: one Christmas in Traverse Town or spent with friends and family, the next Christmas exploring a new foreign land. Being limited to only one day a year just spurred Sora on to make sure they experienced as many different things as possible.

They went dune bashing in Agrabah. Sora did the driving, by virtue of Riku not having a license, and he maintained that he did an excellent job going full-throttle across the desert.

“For a moment I thought I was going to die, and I’m immortal,” had been Riku’s dry assessment of Sora’s performance. Honestly, Sora had taken that as a compliment.

They visited the Republic of Arendelle, a place famous for its intense winters. They had fully embraced it by spending the night in an ice hotel and thoroughly enjoying keeping each other warm throughout the night, before spending their day sledding, checking out various saunas, and finally building a snowman.

(Both of them maintained that, really, sandmen were better.)

Then there was the Christmas they spent in Greece, exploring the remnants of ancient times while Riku told such vivid stories that Sora felt like he could see Olympus itself by the time the sun was setting.

They forged such cherished memories in every place they visited, not allowing a single second to be squandered. Sora adored it all and was hard pressed to name a favourite if asked which of his Christmas globetrotting adventures he favoured.

But he always had a soft spot for the Caribbean, so much so that they went there quite a few times to check out the different countries. Sora was forty-three the first time they visited, having booked a hotel in the city of Port Royal, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t giddy at finally having the chance to play out his pirate fantasies.

And Riku liked exploring the sea by boat with the wind in his hair, even if at first he looked at Sora like he was mad when his husband demanded to be called ‘Captain’. He’d since come around to the idea though, even screaming it ecstatically on more than one occasion.

Sora became so used to Christmas truly being the happiest time of the year that whenever it wasn’t, it came as the biggest shock.

x~x~x~x~x

One such occasion was one Sora would go on to remember vividly.

It was a Christmas they had agreed to spend in Traverse Town seeing as they spent the last year exploring La Cité des Cloches. Riku had been particularly talkative when they toured Notre-Dame, regaling Sora with snippets of history not commonly found in the usual textbooks.

So this was a year where they would take it easy and relax at home. Sora had spent most of Christmas Eve preparing a turducken because, when he had told Riku about it the year before, he thought Sora had been joking about it actually being a real thing. So Sora figured he would put together a grand Christmas lunch with a turducken as the centrepiece.

Three minutes before midnight Sora stood in front of his lovingly decorated Christmas tree and smiled up at the porcelain angel proudly sat atop it. He bounced a little on the balls of his feet as his excitement ratcheted up, so close to being able to take Riku into his arms again.

The second hand finally ticked its way over the line, heralding the start of a new day, and Riku… didn’t appear. Sora furrowed his eyebrows, pulling out his phone to make sure that it was in fact midnight. The 00:00 staring back at him innocuously just made him even more confused.

He looked up at the porcelain angel, sat there as if it were any normal Christmas ornament, showing no signs of lighting up and opening a rift between the boundary that kept him and Riku apart.

He tried not to panic at first. Yes, Riku was always prompt when he crossed over, but maybe something had come up. He was stuck in heavenly traffic or something.

At 00:05 he was frowning.

At 00:07 Sora carefully retrieved the porcelain angel and carefully checked it over for any cracks or chips. He ran his fingers delicately over every faint line that spoke of Geppetto’s handiwork all those years ago. Sora had obsessively wrapped his angel in a ludicrous amount of bubble wrap and tissue paper ever since it was fixed, only retrieving him from the nest of safety for Christmas itself. It would have been almost impossible for it to have sustained any damage and, sure enough, his thorough inspection revealed that everything was as it should be.

He placed it back atop the tree and bit his lip.

“Riku, where are you?” he murmured, looking down at his ring as if it held the answer. It flickered in response. Sora let out a light exhale, watching the band of light closely. Flickering hadn’t been something he had ever noticed it doing before.

A frozen feeling began to creep into his veins like ice-cold water, tendrils of dread wrapping their way around his heart. Something wasn’t right, and this feeling worked its way into Sora’s bones with each minute that passed and Riku still failed to appear.

By 00:38 Sora was assuming the worst, pacing frantically around his living room and running his hands through his hair for lack of anything else to do. And yet his increasingly wild hair didn’t even come close to the wild look in his eyes as he kept looking at the angel on the tree, desperate for any sign that something was going to happen. His ring was flickering with regularity now, the ring that was comprised of Riku’s own light, like a mini warning beacon wrapped around Sora’s finger.

An hour into Christmas and Sora was on the verge of tears. His mind kept playing a sadistic loop of all of the dreadful things that could be going on and Sora was utterly powerless to do anything about it.

At 1:23 Sora knelt in front of the tree, and he prayed. Maybe there was a chance that Riku would hear him. Was there a way for Riku to communicate back? Even just a simple ‘I’m okay’ would have sufficed at this point.

A couple of minutes into his prayer a burst of light exploded behind Sora’s closed eyelids. But when he blinked them open it wasn’t coming from the porcelain angel, but from his ring. It glowed brighter and brighter and then it was _burning_.

Sora let out a pained shout, clutching at his hand as it felt like the ring might burn right through his finger. Searing heat underscored with severe pain pulsed from the ring throughout his entire body and he doubled over on the floor, trying to gasp in as much air as he could but the pain made it hard to breathe. Even worse, the tug on his heart that usually brought comfort instead pulled so harshly it felt like his heart might by ripped directly out of his chest.

Sora was in pure agony and then, in an instant, it all stopped. Torture was replaced by a foreboding sense of _nothing_ and Sora lay there, staring at his ring and feeling a little delirious. His pulse was thudding rapidly in his chest, his cheeks wet with tears.

And then, _finally_ , a sight that calmed him: the angel atop the tree lit up.

“Thank god,” Sora muttered as he shielded his eyes against the light explosion. He heard the clank of something metal hitting the ground hard and when Sora turned to look, the pain from earlier seemed like the sweetest of mercies in comparison to what he felt now.

Riku lay in a heap on the ground, his armour crushed and twisted around mangled limbs. A silvery liquid flowed out of the battered angel, forming an ever-growing pool around him. Sora had never seen Riku bleed before, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that the silver liquid he was rapidly losing was the angel equivalent of blood.

For a moment Sora was frozen, his brain unable to comprehend the sight before him. Riku was a tall, impenetrable force of light, the strongest being that Sora had come into contact with. His power was beyond mortal comprehension. The idea of him ever losing seemed laughable. So this pile of angel bleeding out on the floor and skewered by sharp shards of his own armour was an image that simply did not make sense.

A pained sound gurgled in the back of Riku’s throat and suddenly Sora was back in the room and the horrifying reality hit home. He felt bile rise in his stomach and fought to keep his insides down as he scrambled over to the injured angel. The more Sora saw, the worse the picture seemed to get.

Riku's right arm was completely crushed, mangled together with cold metal in a grotesque display of pain. His torso looked as though it had been exploded, the armour around it having shattered while silver blood leaked from deflated remains. And then there was Riku’s left leg, or lack of one. His left thigh was a mess of tattered skin and an alarming level of silver blood pouring out of where the missing limb ought to have been.

“Riku,” Sora choked out, tears streaming down his face as he knelt beside him.

Riku twitched at the sound and managed to angle his heavy head so that cloudy aquamarine could gaze up at him. Sora wasn’t even sure if Riku comprehended who he was or where he was. His skin had a frightening dull pallor to it, barren of light.

And yet bloodied lips twisted into something like a smile before opening, the sound escaping little more than an exhalation of pained air. “So…ra…” His left arm twitched, as if trying to move, but Riku seemed to have very little control over what remained of his body and it hung dead at his side despite his efforts, the ring Sora had given him still intact on his finger. “Ho…me…” he choked out. “I’m… home…”

“Welcome home,” Sora managed, stuttering terribly over the two words. It’s not as though he could call a doctor. He tried to remember anything he knew about first aid, but didn’t know if any of it would be effective. Did angels need bandages? Did their wounds need to be disinfected? _How was he meant to deal with an injury that had left Riku without a leg?_

He was definitely panicking. In the end he decided to at least move Riku on to the sofa, hopefully a more comfortable place than the hardwood floor. Riku was already heavy and the addition of his armour just made him more so but in that moment of panic, adrenaline served to fuel Sora’s body into completing the task at hand.

He carefully slipped his arms under Riku’s back and managed to stand up and begin his slow, shaky walk over to the sofa with Riku in his arms.

Riku made a gurgling noise again, but when Sora looked down at his expression he wondered if it was supposed to have been a laugh.

“Guess you… d-did pay me back a-after… all,” he breathed, lolling his head against Sora’s chest. He seemed happy. Delirious, but happy.

“Huh?” was all Sora could manage in response.

“Never mind,” Riku said, voice practically a whisper. “You p-probably don’t… don’t remember…”

It took everything Sora had to keep it together long enough to set Riku gently down on the sofa. He tried not to look at the trail of silvery blood across the floor and instead grasped Riku’s mostly uninjured left hand tightly.

“I-I’m here,” he said.

“I’m… here…” Riku responded.

Sora knelt beside Riku, not once letting go of his hand, and carefully lay his head next to Riku’s.

As the adrenaline bled out of his body, Sora passed out from shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Latin words Riku spoke on their honeymoon were, "O Lord hear my prayer and let my cry come unto Thee." These are just a fraction of many words spoken during traditional marriage rites.
> 
> Also it really is a shame that Rapunzel's Kingdom is so unfortunately named. I honestly didn't do that on purpose!
> 
> Next chapter is the final chapter... please don't hurt me... you gotta give me this one last cliffhanger...
> 
> Just trust me, dear readers, and may your lives be blessed with bountiful SoRiku goodness~


	7. Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Regardless of warnings the future doesn’t scare me at all”— Utada Hikaru, ‘Simple and Clean’

Sora awoke to the feeling of gentle fingers carding through his hair. He relaxed into the touch for a moment before his mind jolted with the gruesome image of Riku. He quickly sat up, startling Riku in the process. He had seemed preoccupied with something, staring off into the distance as he pet Sora’s hair, but those eyes were on him now. Sora’s heart felt a little less constricted as he noticed how much clearer they seemed.

“How are you feeling?” Riku asked. The question seemed surreal; he shouldn’t have been the one asking it.

“I… how long was I out?” Sora asked.

“A few hours. The sun has not yet risen.”

“Oh, that’s um… okay.”

Sora looked at Riku. At some point the armour had been dispelled to be replaced by Riku’s usual robe, so clean and pristine as to appear jarring against the angel himself. But he didn’t seem nearly as wrecked as earlier. The minor injuries of his left arm were non-existent now. The right arm that had resembled ground meat also seemed to have reformed itself, crushed bones having been rebuilt, muscles and flesh restored.

The toga covered Riku’s torso but given that the angel seemed able to support his weight as he sat up, it appeared that it, too, was also rapidly on the mend. And as for Riku’s missing leg, well, Sora watched in morbid fascination as tiny pinpricks of light gravitated towards the injury before setting around the edges, steadily building the limb back.

Riku’s skin was still duller than usual, but most traces of the silvery blood were gone. In fact, when Sora quickly glanced at his floor where he knew for a fact there was a pool of such blood and a trail of it leading directly to the sofa, there was nothing. The floor was completely clean, as if the stains had never existed in the first place.

It was very clear that, probably within the next couple of hours, Riku would be fully restored and showing no trace of the horrific injuries that had befallen him.

Sora struggled for words, so many questions and thoughts vying for attention that they paralysed his tongue. Riku clearly saw him struggling and sighed, placing a soothing hand on Sora’s shoulder.

“Do not worry,” he gently urged. “I am not human, and my ability to heal quickly means that I shall be back to normal soon enough.”

“B-But that’s, y-you, I can’t—I mean you were—” Too many words. So many words that his head pounded with them all.

“Apologies,” Riku said. “Apologies for appearing in such an unsightly manner.”

“Like you have to apologise for something like that!” Sora replied, finally finding his voice again. “Holy shit Riku, I thought I—I thought that I was going to lose you. There was… so much blood and you… you…”

“Sora,” he soothed, “Please, don’t fret. It would take a lot more than that to kill an angel, believe me.”

Riku did seem apologetic but beyond that, he was incredibly calm. Casual, even.

Sora furrowed his eyebrows. He should have felt relief that his beloved was going to be okay, but… “But—”

“If you think I was bad, you should have seen the state of my adversaries.”

Was that a joke? Was Riku genuinely trying to make light of this right now? He looked to be one second away from _shrugging_ he was so blasé about it, and suddenly Sora felt angry instead of relieved.

“This isn’t a joke, Riku! What the _fuck_ happened?”

Riku sighed and looked away, as if the events that had started this Christmas were merely an annoying inconvenience as opposed a grave god damn _disaster_ in which his body had been beaten and twisted beyond recognition.

“Just a run-in with some of the more unsavoury dwellers of darkness,” he replied, still downplaying it, and then a chilling realisation hit Sora.

The reason Riku was acting so casual about it, as if this was just another typical fucking day, was because… it was. There could be no other explanation.

“Look at me,” Sora said firmly. “ _Riku_.”

Riku reluctantly looked his way.

“Is this…” Sora began tentatively, not sure he really wanted the answer to this question. No, that wasn’t it. He wanted the answer; he just doubted he’d actually like it. “Is this normal? Does this happen a lot?”

Sora could see Riku reaching into the depths of his mind, mining for a suitable answer.

“It is not wholly uncommon,” was his diplomatic reply, spoken with a degree of nonchalance clearly intended to deflect proper scrutiny of it.

It didn’t work; that answer stabbed a shard of ice straight into Sora’s heart.

“Just what the hell does a guardian angel do?” Sora asked.

He had wanted this question answered for years, since the very beginning, but any time he had attempted to broach the subject Riku either deflected it, said that he was not allowed to answer, or gave his stock answer.

Today, he gave the stock answer.

“We keep the human we are assigned to safe.”

Today, Sora wasn’t going to accept that answer.

“Why the fuck does that involve you nearly _dying_ —”

“I am immortal,” Riku interjected, his intent being to play down the seriousness of it, but it just made Sora angrier. Not necessarily at Riku, but just—just the whole thing.

“But you said it would ‘take more than that’ to kill an angel," Sora countered, “So they _can_ be killed?”

Riku let an uncomfortable silence stretch out for so long that it served as answer enough. But still, when Sora’s stomach was truly in knots, he said, “But it is not an easy feat and exceedingly unlikely to occur.”

“That doesn’t mean your life is worthless! Getting beaten up like that regularly is _not_ okay! There was so much blood a-and you were clearly in pain! I mean holy shit Riku! You lost a _leg_!”

“The fault was mine,” Riku said quietly. “I vowed to protect you. I promised I’d come home to you at Christmas.” The way he said it was definitely intended to be an explanation; there was no way that he was placing the blame on Sora. Riku believed these to be legitimate reasons, but they just made Sora feel dreadful that his mere existence caused Riku such pain and hardship.

“It is no secret how important this day is to me. Some demons thought they could capitalise on it and did everything within their power to prevent me from crossing over. I could feel the precious seconds of Christmas slipping away, and then I heard you calling to me, so in my haste to get to you, I… perhaps went a little overboard. Apologies for putting you through that.”

Riku hadn’t even apologised for acting so recklessly; his apology had specifically been about subjecting Sora to the state he was in. He was apologising because Sora had seen the truth, but not finding fault in or questioning that truth in the first place.

Sora’s guilt kept festering, bubbling up in his stomach and clawing its way up his throat. Sora had been blissfully unaware of the trials that Riku faced. Riku had hidden this truth from him for so long, likely from the very beginning, protecting him from it.

“Please,” Sora begged, “You need to give me more than that. I don’t… I don’t understand. _Why_?”

His distress was palpable, and Riku carefully reached out to cup his cheek.

“All right,” Riku acquiesced. He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. “There are many different classes of angel,” he carefully began, “And each serve their own function. I am now a guardian angel.”

He paused. More thinking. Sora wondered if he should let Riku continue, knowing that he would likely be punished for this. But punishment seemed to be the majority of Riku's existence, and he _needed_ this answer more than anything. It's not like Sora wasn't already riddled with guilt.

“Not all guardian angels work the same way; it depends on which group you belong to. I, myself, belong to an elite group called the Guardians of Light. Comparatively we are a small group. Each Guardian is only assigned one human at a time; each assignment lasts for that human’s lifetime. The humans we deal with are unique: they possess a strong light.

“All humans are born with a measure of light and darkness. In the vast majority of cases these two forces are in equilibrium. But sometimes humans are born with abnormally strong light, or very powerful darkness. The Guardians of Light deal with the former, protecting the lights of the world.”

Sora nodded. “So the fact that you belong to the Guardians of Light, and that you're my guardian angel, means that my light is stronger than normal?”

Sora wasn’t sure what reaction he expected to his question, but it certainly wasn’t for Riku to let out an amused huff of breath and shake his head.

“If only you knew how much of an understatement that was,” he managed after a moment. “I do not exaggerate when I say that the day you were born, the universe shook. All those who dwell beyond the boundary knew of it instantly. Sora you are, quite possibly, the most extraordinary human to exist.”

Sora was struck dumb. He had that level of significance? He was just an ordinary islander boy who moved to the city and started a wedding planning business. There was nothing of any laudable note about him. He wasn't a famous artist like Naminé, nor royalty like the Princess Rapunzel had been. And yet the Guardians clearly deemed it necessary to protect him.

Sora recalled the demon’s words from a few years ago. Lea had called him a ‘celebrity’, had even claimed that he was somehow leagues above Riku. Sora would forever repudiate that latter point, but… maybe there was something to his former claim.

And yet nothing like that had happened since. No demons lurking in shadows snatching him away in the night. No angels swarming him. Sora supposedly had this cosmic significance and yet the main concerns he had in life were dealing with bridezillas and trying to source free-range organic birds to make a turducken.

But that was the point, wasn’t it?

_“All you have to do is keep being you, and I’ll take care of the rest.”_

Riku’s job wasn’t to protect him from life’s hardships and inconveniences. It was to ensure that Sora _could_ experience them in the first place, living as just another ordinary human.

It was a job that Riku had performed admirably. A job that, as tonight had proved, he was willing to give everything he had to ensure he did it well. A wry part of Sora’s mind, the only part that wasn’t drowning in grief and guilt, branded Riku a ‘workaholic’ in this regard.

“Please don’t cry,” Riku said softly, wiping at the tears falling from his eyes. Sora thought this was a rather unfair request, but knew that the request he wanted to make of Riku, that he _stop_ guarding him, would have been even more unfair. Sora knew Riku well enough to know that his angel would never stop doing what it took to keep him safe, and that to even ask would be an insult to his very existence.

And so he continued to cry, feeling utterly helpless in the knowledge that there was nothing he could do to change any of this. There was no way for him to help Riku. This was simply the way of things.

But then a daring thought had the audacity to strike at the heart of his anguish: just because there was nothing he could do now, did this have to be the way things _always_ were?

“How do I join?” Sora blurted out.

Riku’s eyes widened, startled by the question. “I’m sorry?”

“How do I become a Guardian of Light?”

“Sora, that’s—”

“Is there like a soul sign-up sheet I can sign or—or like a miracle I can perform on earth to qualify?” He could hear how desperate he sounded, but said desperation was matched by his determination.

Sensing that dismissing him outright was not going to deter him, Riku sighed and bit his lip. “Cases of humans becoming angels are incredibly rare,” he said. “And a human going on to become a guardian angel, much less join the Guardians of Light, is completely unheard of throughout our entire history.”

“Then I’ll be the first,” Sora said, each word spoken with conviction. “Didn’t you say my light was crazy powerful? Doesn’t that merit some consideration? With the right training I’m sure I could prove myself worthy of joining your ranks and then I’ll be able to protect you too, Riku. I would be able to make sure that you’re never hurt like this ever again.”

Sora hated feeling powerless like this. Knowing that there would be many more years where he really wouldn’t be able to do anything for Riku pained his very soul. The idea that he may be able to return all of Riku’s hard work, that he could stay by his side and keep him safe, was the only thing holding him together.

As if able to sense that his sanity somewhat relied on this, at least in this fragile moment, Riku sighed and nodded his head.

“I shall ask the question,” Riku assured him, linking their fingers together, “But I make no promises.”

“Thank you.”

“Now please… I would really like to enjoy the rest of my Christmas with the one I love.”

It was a gentle way of telling Sora to drop the subject, and a sincere way.

“Okay,” Sora promised, leaning in to kiss Riku’s cheek, the tip of his nose, and finally his lips. He still had so many turbulent emotions churning around inside of him but knowing that Riku was here, and that he was going to be just fine regardless of his terrible ordeal, helped to soothe him. He relaxed into the kiss, wrapping his arms around his angel. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

x~x~x~x~x

They never talked about that Christmas. Sora worried, of course, for Riku’s safety, but he had to accept that there was very little he could do to ensure it. The only thing he could do was believe in Riku and trust that he would return to him each Christmas, and make sure that he was always welcomed with open arms.

Riku never told him if he did speak to his bosses or god or whoever had the authority to sign him up to the Guardians of Light. Sora never asked; it didn’t seem appropriate to. He took it on faith that the question had at least been asked, given Riku’s passionate commitment to keeping his word at all times, but he wasn’t aware of the reply (if there even was one). He figured that if there was a development then Riku would inform him and given the delicate nature of the situation, he didn’t pry.

And of course, as it was wont to do, life carried on.

Christmases came and went, the lovey-dovey blissful sort that filled Sora’s heart with warmth and love. They continued travelling the world. Kairi got married. Sora became the uncle of a beautiful niece. Sora had the immense honour of planning a royal wedding for the princess of Genovia (a country that, admittedly, Sora had needed to look up). Geppetto died.

Sora had spoken at his funeral, attended by so many people. The old toymaker had touched so many hearts over his long years of life and all came to pay their respects. Tears were shed. Celebrations of his life offered up. Sora made sure that Cleo had all the support she needed; she really had grown up so fast. She was thankful her papa had lived long enough to not only see her graduate from university, but witness the woman she had become, excelling in her field of work and tackling everything with tenacity and confidence, all because she knew that she was loved. Geppetto had been so proud of his daughter, and Cleo vowed to keep making him proud for as long as she drew breath.

Riku never spoke of the afterlife. Sora assumed the subject was taboo, informing a human of what, if anything, awaited them after death. But Sora couldn’t help but feel that Geppetto _was_ out there somewhere, that the end wasn’t really the end.

Perhaps that was just wishful thinking on his part. But then again, as Geppetto had proved, there was nothing wrong with wishing.

x~x~x~x~x

Sora stumbled through his door, merry on champagne and festivity and, most important of all, Riku’s company. His angel had wrapped a strong arm around his waist, guiding him through the house. Sora was absolutely not tipsy enough for Riku to need to go to such lengths, but Sora would never deny Riku’s touch and Riku was always happy to be liberal with it.

They had enjoyed a fancy meal out at one of the most exclusive restaurants Traverse Town had to offer. Booked practically a year in advance, Sora had heard everyone who managed to get in raving about the cuisine and, truthfully, Sora was very keen to see Riku wearing a suit.

It was a miracle they ever made it to the restaurant. Riku had looked Sora up and down and nodded his approval at his well-tailored suit.

“You look very handsome,” he had complimented, a tasteful and certainly proper thing to say despite the way his eyes were subtly undressing the human.

Sora hadn’t nearly been so sophisticated about it, blatantly ogling his gorgeous husband and waxing lyrical with his praise for how sumptuous, magnificent, beautiful, splendid, and a whole host of other effusive compliments he was while also slipping Riku’s suit jacket off of his shoulders.

But Riku had greater restraint (his words, not Sora’s, who pointed out that his begging last night, in rather different restraints, was hardly characteristic of the alleged temperance he was displaying now) and had bundled the pair of them out of the door after only a moderate amount of passionate kissing in time to claim the reservation.

And now that it was after the fact, there was absolutely nothing to stop Sora pawing at Riku’s suit that clung to him in all the right places. Riku let out a breathy laugh as Sora mouthed at his neck.

“Tickles,” he commented.

“Sorry,” Sora mumbled. He had shaved on Christmas Eve, but this far into Christmas it was inevitable that some shadowy stubble had already returned.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Riku hummed in response, tangling his fingers in Sora’s hair and tugging at it in a gesture that Sora knew to mean ‘keep going’. Sora would have done so had he not caught a glimpse of them in the hallway mirror.

He sighed and pulled away, running his own hands through his hair. The strands were brown, but that was only because Sora had been meticulous in dyeing the greying strands.

Sora looked at his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t really _feel_ old; even though he was in his fifties, he still had the same zest for life that he’d always had. And he hadn’t thought he looked all that old either, but stood next to Riku like this merely served to highlight all the ways that ageing had affected him.

“Sora?” Riku asked, and the human’s eyes were drawn to the angel’s reflection now, his expression one of concern. “What’s wrong?”

“I probably look like some sleazy old guy, wandering around with you on my arm.”

Riku’s eyebrows furrowed. “Excuse me?”

“Look at me,” Sora sighed. “The age difference definitely looks suspect.”

Riku snorted. Sora turned around to look at him incredulously and this caused Riku to actually laugh, throwing his head back as his body shook with the bright laughter. Sora was just confused now.

“The difference between our ages is so monumental as to be rendered meaningless,” Riku managed after he had recovered, though every now and then a stray chuckle escaped him. Sora had never seen him so amused before. “You do recall that I am vastly older than you, right? If any of us seems suspicious because he’s wandering around with a pretty young thing on his arm, it is definitely me.”

Sora was rendered speechless at that response. Their relationship was inappropriate for a whole host of reasons that Sora hadn’t cared about, and it’s not like the age thing bothered him before now. But it was hard to remember that Riku was as old as he was when he looked as young and vibrant as he had been on that first night they met when Sora was but a child. Riku was perfectly carved marble; a timeless beauty. And Sora was…

“If it bothers you, I can return to being visible only to you,” Riku said, stepping forward and taking Sora into his arms.

Sora relaxed against his chest, lulled into calmness as he listened to Riku’s beating heart. “You don’t have to do that,” he murmured. “It… really doesn’t bother you?”

“Not at all. I like being seen with you.”

Sora smiled and leant up to kiss Riku’s lips. “Okay,” he nodded. He smoothed his hands over the lapels of Riku’s suit. “Say, how old are you anyway?”

“You wouldn’t be able to count that high,” Riku replied.

“Because I’m bad at counting or because the number is so big?”

“Two things can be true.”

Sora chuckled. “Cheeky, aren’t you?” He toyed with the buttons of Riku’s suit jacket, not quite having the nerve to undo them. Despite Riku’s reassurances, hell, despite being totally fine last night, Sora was still somewhat hesitant.

“Hey,” Riku said gently, clearly sensing his apprehension. “I think you’re beautiful.” If the sincerity of those words didn’t make his opinion clear then the way Sora felt Riku tug on their heart connection to underscore them certainly did.

He cupped Sora’s cheeks and smiled. “Every wrinkle and every grey hair is a testament to a life well lived.” He smoothed his hands down Sora’s shoulders, his fingers making quick work undoing the buttons on his jacket and slipping the garment off of him altogether. “It means that I am doing my job right.” Deftly unbuttoning his shirt, having it pool around his shoulders until Sora shrugged out of it. “It means that you are safe.”

He dipped his head down, kissing a trail along Sora’s neck and teasingly flicking his tongue against one of his nipples as wandering hands continued smoothing down his body, resting against his hips. His touch was sure, heated, and loaded with affection. He still touched Sora like he was beautiful no matter what.

“Your body tells a story,” Riku said, his voice low and deep, a sultry sound that made Sora heat up. “Of the man that you have been.” He slid to his knees, working Sora’s belt open. “Of the man that you are.” Successfully stripping Sora of all of his clothing. “Even hinting at the man you will become.”

Riku’s hot breath ghosted over Sora’s length and Sora groaned, his eyes falling shut as he felt that complimentary tongue running intimately over him, coaxing the heat to a full blaze.

“You are lucky,” Sora felt the words vibrating into his flesh, “My body carries no such stories. But I love the ones that your body tells.”

And then there was only wet hot pleasure in Sora’s world as Riku committed to finding his most sensitive areas and using the perfect amount of pressure to make any worries melt away into one truth: regardless of his insecurities, Riku adored him. So there was no need to feel insecure.

“Riku,” he gasped, his fingers twisting into silvery strands, his hips twitching as Riku took him in deeper. He felt Riku’s hands snake around the back of his thighs and squeeze, encouraging Sora to move. Sora’s eyes opened wide at that, looking down at Riku in awe and being surprised to find that at some point Riku had disrobed, the pieces of his suit discarded to one side.

Riku’s hands squeezed again, coaxing him forward. Without pausing in his task for one moment he gazed up at Sora and Sora lost it, thrusting forward with a moan of Riku’s name. His angel made a pleased little sound that travelled right through his cock and merely spurred Sora to thrust again and again, setting a steady rhythm as he rocked into Riku’s mouth.

Two things gave him pause: the first was Riku’s own state of arousal, going wholly ignored in favour of Sora’s own pleasure. The second was that, as Riku had eloquently pointed out earlier, the marks that Sora had made on his skin last night had already faded, a story lost from sight but certainly not from memory. It would be a sin to let his skin remain unmarked for a moment longer.

Sora stilled his hips and drew back, slipping from Riku’s mouth. Riku himself looked rather blissed out if confused at the sudden cessation of their amorous activities, looking up at him for an explanation.

“I get it,” Sora said, panting lightly, “Thank you.”

He pulled Riku up and spun him around, pressing his chest to Riku’s back, the both of them looking into the hallway mirror. This time when Sora looked at their reflections his earlier worries were nowhere in sight. Instead it was just the two of them, Sora and Riku, still in love and, at present, incredibly horny.

“I didn’t realise you had a thing for older men,” Sora said teasingly, kissing Riku’s shoulder.

Riku laughed breathlessly. “I have a thing for you,” he replied, pushing back against Sora and moaning as he felt his slick cock slide between his cheeks. “Although you do last a lot longer now.”

It was Sora’s turn to laugh this time, lightly smacking Riku’s thigh in response to such cheekiness.

“Unlike you,” he said. “I’ve barely touched you and yet you’re already this far gone.” To illustrate his point, Sora slid his hand down Riku’s front and lightly ran a teasing finger along his already leaking length. Riku trembled and rocked back harder, his breath fogging up the mirror as he felt Sora sliding against the place he wanted him most.

Sora would be lying if he said that he didn’t love this, that he wasn’t crazy about how Riku reacted so strongly to him. He smiled and, perhaps a little cruelly, dipped his head down to lick along the faint marks at Riku’s back.

_“Sora!”_

Yes. Just like that. More. Sora would never tire of the sound of Riku’s pleasure. He lined himself up and Riku was already squirming eagerly.

“Tonight I’ll make you scream so loud that the heavens themselves will hear,” Sora promised.

Riku shivered at those words, his lips pulling up into a needy little smile. “Amen.”

x~x~x~x~x

Sora was not immune to the passage of time. No human was. As the days, months, years passed by, Sora always experienced new things, made new friends, caught up with old ones.

Sora loved his job so much that even though he could have retired at the end of his fifties and lived comfortably, he kept doing it well into his seventies. And even then he didn’t retire because he stopped loving what he did, but rather because he felt himself slowing down.

It was strange and more than a little frustrating to have his mind unable to command his body to move the way he’d like it to anymore. And then, after a time, his mind also slowed down. Thoughts took him longer to articulate, his stories taking on the quality of rambling a lot of the time.

When he retired he moved back to Destiny Islands, purchasing a cosy bungalow that overlooked the sea and was just a short walk away from the actual beach. He still kept in touch with his friends of course, and they still met up, but Sora found ways to amuse himself on the lazy, sunny islands. He visited the community centre one evening while a group of people were playing a card game called Flick Rush and Sora soon found himself attending the Flick Rush sessions every Tuesday evening from six p.m.

Riku never missed a single Christmas, more than happy to curl up at Sora’s side and listen to him take a bit too long to regale him of various things that had happened to him over the course of that particular year. His angel never seemed annoyed or bored, listening to every word with a small contented smile.

Even when Sora finally gave up the battle against his grey hairs and let them overrun his head, or when he had a fall in the shower and subsequently needed to use a walking stick for longer walks, Riku still regarded Sora as Sora. He would still kiss him despite his ever-increasing wrinkles, would still wrap him up in his arms and give him the best hugs. He would never hesitate to tell Sora that he loved him, and always would.

The islander kids liked Sora. He knew so many secrets about the different islands and would tell them of the best hiding places. Every now and then he’d throw in something ridiculous, like how one of the islands was actually home to a giant Leviathan that would snake through the sea and gobble up naughty islander kids that dared to swim in the surrounding waters, and because a lot of Sora’s other stories were true they ate it up.

(He did have to deal with a few unimpressed parents after he told that particular tale, though.)

Sometimes Sora would wonder about his legacy. Unlike Roxas he had never had children, but he liked to think that his friends would remember him fondly. That all of the marriages he had helped bring to fruition, making sure couples had their dream wedding, counted for something. Even if they only thought of him sparingly, that was fine. He may not have made some grand mark on history that would be written about in textbooks for the rest of time, but the things he had made a difference in when it came to his own world, his friends and family and clients and acquaintances, he hoped he had done enough there.

But his life wasn’t quite over yet, and as long as he drew breath he would continue to make people smile and continue to make new friends. If he failed to live his life to the fullest then that would just be an insult to Riku, who had dedicatedly guarded him all these decades.

Riku, who still loved him and returned to his side every Christmas. Who still celebrated their anniversary with the same gusto as all of the others. Whose ring of light still sat proudly on Sora’s finger while Sora’s silver ring remained a permanent fixture of Riku’s.

Whatever else that could be said, Sora had definitely known love in his life. For that, he was truly blessed.

x~x~x~x~x

Sora didn’t fear death.

He’d had a while now to make peace with it, to accept that death was a part of life. He had shared his stories and funny anecdotes while he could, to anyone who would listen, and when he looked back on everything that he had achieved he felt pride.

Sora didn’t fear death, but he did fear that he would never see Riku again.

As the years wore on and Sora was naturally worn down, he’d been able to say what he wanted to say to his friends and family before it was too late. He was able to make peace. But there was only one day a year where he could do that with Riku, at least in person. He’d prayed to him sometimes, or just talked and hoped that the general sentiment was communicated over their link, able to transcend the boundary that kept them apart.

But Sora wanted to see Riku again, just one last time.

He’d been able to procure a tiny tree and had placed it on his bedside table, placing the much-loved porcelain angel atop it. He’d been perched there since the beginning of December; Sora felt happy when he woke up and saw the angel, felt comfort as he drifted off under his watchful gemstone eyes.

It was a struggle to get out of bed without assistance. It was a struggle to do much of anything. His hands shook terribly; Sora didn’t know why. An age thing. He’d had to deal with a lot of ‘age things’. Most of them were rather unpleasant.

But he was hanging in there, just about. Waiting for just one more Christmas. Sora was under no illusions that it would be his last.

He had tried valiantly to stay awake late into Christmas Eve, but his bedtime seemed to naturally fall earlier and earlier with each passing day. Despite his best efforts he fell asleep, unable to fight away the tiredness that plagued his bones despite however much his mind wished to stay awake all night or leap from his bed and dance around.

He was roused by a bright burst of light, so vivid and wonderful that it could reach through sleep itself. And, of course, accompanying the radiant light was that wonderful feeling of utter peace.

He blinked his eyes open and smiled up at Riku, who was now standing over him. Just as resplendent and magnificent as that first Christmas so many years ago. Sora had changed so much since then. So had Riku, albeit not physically.

“Riku,” he smiled, his voice a frail thing these days. “I’m glad that I could see you.”

Riku nodded and leant down, touching their foreheads together. “Merry Christmas, Sora,” he murmured, pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

Sora sighed happily, his weakened heart bolstered by the joyful tug it felt whenever his beloved was near. “And a happy anniversary,” he replied. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Sora reached up with a shaky hand, tenderly cupping Riku’s cheek and gazing into the eyes he loved so much. They were bright and full of affection, shining with a watery quality. His angel pressed feather light kisses against his wizened cheeks, his forehead, his nose, ending with one more press against his lips. Riku drew in a shaky breath before willing his lips to upturn into a smile.

“Let’s go,” he said gently, pulling away from Sora and holding his hand out.

Sora regarded the welcoming hand for a moment, smiling at the silver wedding ring despite his confusion. Go? Go where? He couldn’t really go anywhere like this. But still, he trusted Riku, and he willed his trembling limbs into action, reaching out to slot his own left hand within Riku’s, the band of light pulsing soothingly.

Riku gave a small tug and suddenly Sora felt lighter than air, surging forward with a burst of pure energy the likes of which he hadn’t felt in years. He felt something distinct _shift_ and then he was on his feet, feeling weightless and better than ever. Breathing came so easily and his limbs were still, unaffected by the tremors that usually seized them.

He looked at Riku with wide eyes and Riku replied with a small smile that spoke of great fondness and also a measure of sadness. Sora looked down at their clasped hands and gasped at the sight of his own, free of the prominent veins and liver spots he had become accustomed to. Instead his skin was smooth and tan, as it used to be when he was younger.

It was then that Sora began to have an inkling of what was happening, and Riku remained silent as he worked through it. Sora turned around to look at his bed and saw himself lying there: grey hair, an old body that had served him faithfully, a look of peace upon his face.

“Oh,” Sora murmured.

Somehow, the terror that ought to come with viewing one’s own corpse was wholly absent. It was certainly surreal, but the overriding sentiment that Sora felt as he gazed at himself was acceptance.

He let go of Riku’s hand so that he could go and peer into his bathroom mirror, laughing as he saw the reflection of his past self. He couldn’t put a precise number to it, but he was definitely back in his twenties, early thirties at most. He was kind of annoyed that he lived in a bungalow now; he had the urge to run up a load of stairs right then. God, despite his outer appearance, he really was an old coot if running up stairs was novel to him.

He ran back to Riku, the simple act of being able to run again making him feel giddy.

“Who knew dying felt this great?” he grinned. Perhaps the notion was a little morbid, but his dead body was literally just lying right there on the bed, so if there was ever a time for darker humour it was now. Besides, one of the advantages of being an old man was getting to say controversial shit and no one calling him on it.

Riku rolled his eyes in response and Sora laughed, a boisterous sound that neither had heard for a rather long time. His laughter had become no less bright but certainly a lot more reserved as his lungs tended to protest at the more boisterous variety in his old age.

“I’m handsome again!” He threw his arms out and spun around, unencumbered by his old physical limitations.

“You never stopped being handsome,” Riku said, as straightforward as always. Sora ceased his spinning and wondered if it was possible to die after one was already dead, because containing the emotions he felt for Riku seemed impossible regardless of what plane of existence he was on.

“You sap,” he said fondly, striding over to him. Before Riku could decipher the excited glint in his eyes, Sora wrapped one arm around Riku’s waist, the other supporting the back of his neck, and he dropped him low into a dip kiss.

“I’ve been wanting to do this again,” he hummed against his angel’s lips.

“Like you ever successfully managed this when you were alive,” Riku said dryly.

And then both of them were laughing.

It was rather hard to articulate the exact atmosphere around them. There was certainly happiness, there was certainly love, but the fact remained that Sora was dead.

Sora didn’t fear death, but he did fear that he would never see Riku again.

That was why he held him so tightly and pressed his ear against Riku’s chest, as if by memorising his heartbeat Sora would be able to drown out the harrowing thought of letting him go.

_“I promise to visit you for a lifetime’s worth of Christmases.”_

Riku had kept his promise. Sora’s lifetime was over now, so the Christmas visits would of course be no more.

Sora swallowed a lump in his throat. “Wanna build a sandman?”

If this was going to be his last Christmas, he wanted to make it last as long as he could.

“Okay,” Riku murmured, pressing a kiss to Sora’s forehead.

It took them a while to make it down to the beach by virtue of Sora’s reluctance to let Riku go. There was an underlying desperation to his touches, his hugs, his kisses, in the way he reached for Riku’s hand. He wanted to cram as much in as he could before it was too late.

But Sora still felt the tug on his heart, and it helped to keep him grounded. Being with Riku always relaxed him, and soon his desperation was but a muted thing as they built sandmen and walked hand in hand along the shore. They reminisced for hours, about all the places they had visited, the things they had done, all the way back to their very first meeting.

“I’m glad you fixed that angel all those years ago,” Riku smiled, squeezing Sora’s hand.

Sora leant up and pressed a kiss to Riku’s cheek. “I’m glad you decided to come and say thank you.”

“Well, knowing what I do now, I wonder if I still would.”

“Wha— _Riku!_ ” Sora whined.

Riku laughed, not the small amused release of breath, but the brilliant kind that seemed to brighten the whole universe. “Just kidding.”

They talked until the stars blinking in the sky were replaced by the first hints of dawn, inky blackness bleeding into reds and purples and pastel blues. By this point Sora had come to realise something rather fundamental about his new self, why his body felt strange and why, despite being with Riku, there was a subtle nagging that something wasn’t quite right.

He was no longer of this world, and the longer he stayed here, the more pronounced this feeling of being a stranger amplified. It was clear to him that he would be unable to stay here for much longer. And that was okay. These past few hours he had walked the path of nostalgia, but now it was time to move on.

He stood by Riku’s side, holding his hand, the two of them watching the sunrise. Sora closed his eyes and felt the salty breeze in his hair, breathed in the smell of the islands he knew so well, and listened to the sound of the waves licking their way up the sand before receding.

He slowly opened his eyes. He squeezed Riku’s hand; maybe this was the last time he would ever do so. But it was time to face his fear.

“So, what happens next?” Sora asked.

“Typically, souls are escorted across the boundary and welcomed into the realm of light. It is there where they are informed about the next phase of their existence, and often reunited with loved ones. It is not my function or my domain, however, so I’m afraid I do not know any of the specifics. But I assure you that you will be happy there.”

Sora nodded slowly. He didn’t think that Riku could give him the assurance of happiness, especially now that his long-held suspicions had been confirmed: Riku didn’t deal with souls that passed into the afterlife. Christmas really _had_ been the only time they could be together.

“And atypically?” he asked.

“Pardon?”

“You said that’s what ‘typically’ happens. So, what’s the alternative?”

Riku hesitated for a moment. “Do you recall that Christmas where I… arrived late?”

Sora’s stomach dropped. He didn’t need Riku to explicitly say what had happened that Christmas; that image was burnt into his mind and haunted his nightmares. “Yeah,” he replied.

“You asked me if it was possible for you to join the Guardians…”

“Yeah,” Sora repeated, his heartbeat picking up.

“I asked the question.”

Sora held his breath.

“And despite initial resistance, I was eventually able to convince them that you would be a valuable addition to our ranks. With the proper training, of course.”

Sora’s eyes widened and he looked at Riku. His gaze was returned by stoic aquamarine. Riku’s face wasn’t quite hardened into the neutrality of old, but he was certainly schooling his features into something a lot more refined.

“However, this has never been done before. As I told you back then, instances of humans becoming angels are incredibly rare, and not one soul has attempted to undertake the path of a guardian angel. The transformation you would need to undergo will not be easy and likely take a great toll on you. And the work of a guardian angel, especially that of the Guardians, is fraught with hazards and dangers. You saw me at a particularly low ebb that Christmas, but sustaining such injuries is not uncommon in our line of work. And angels are not entirely immortal, so you will be risking your very soul should you join us. There would be no such danger to you should you pursue the typical route.”

Riku relayed all of this objectively, endeavouring to keep his own emotions out of it. He wanted this to be a choice that Sora made for himself.

Sora turned to face him, taking both of his hands in his as if he were about to say wedding vows.

“I thought that I wanted you for a lifetime,” he said. “But I was wrong.”

It was brief, almost imperceptible, but Sora saw the way Riku flinched at his words. He took a deep breath and brought one of Riku’s hands up to his lips, placing a soft kiss upon it.

“I had a lifetime with you. A lifetime of Christmases. And it wasn’t nearly enough.”

He smiled at the way Riku’s gorgeous eyes widened. His angel was holding his breath, waiting for Sora to speak his piece, hesitant to ruin what was happening.

“But an eternity?” Sora asked, grinning roguishly. “I suppose I can make do with that.”

At once Riku’s anodyne armour crumbled and all his breath escaped him in a happy sob. “Sora…”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is: I want you for an afterlifetime.”

Riku blinked and then he was laughing and shaking his head, pulling Sora in for a hug. “And you call me the sap.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” Sora chuckled.

“I love you,” Riku said, bringing their lips together and kissing him deeply. Sora returned it with just as much passion, overcome with an indescribable joy to know that he would never have to be kept from Riku’s arms. No matter what lay ahead of him or how difficult it may be, he would be able to stand by Riku’s side. He would be able to protect Riku and be there for him and it wouldn’t just need to be on Christmas anymore.

“I love you, too.”

The prospect of more than just Christmas together was a dream come true, and Sora would never stop fighting for it. Did they celebrate Valentine’s Day up in heaven or the realm of light or whatever it was called? It didn’t matter; Sora was going to go all-out for it anyway. And Halloween! And not just the holidays, but ordinary weekdays that they could spend together as well.

“Let’s go,” he grinned, excited to begin the rest of his afterlife.

“Together,” Riku agreed.

A rift of bright light opened before them, an exciting and beautiful sight made even more so by the islands’ sunrise framing it. This was it; this was the boundary that had kept them apart for so long.

Sora and Riku stepped forward, hand in hand, their rings glittering in the light.

And together they crossed the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally over. Thank you so much for reading my story; there are so many stories here on AO3 and yet you spent the time reading mine. It really does mean so much. I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> As a result of this fic being from Sora's point of view, a lot of the lore I created for this world went completely unmentioned :') There's so much going on, from Riku's past, to Lea's shenanigans, to Ventus and the human he has been assigned to... perhaps I shall write more in this universe one day. I certainly have a lot of content for it!
> 
> I hope that we may meet again in another story. Until then stay safe, stay festive (regardless of what month you read this in), and above all:
> 
> May your lives be blessed with bountiful SoRiku goodness~


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